Roughly 14 in every 100 adult Mexicans suffers from diabetes mellitus, better known as type 2 diabetes, according to the head of the department of chronic diseases at the National Institute of Public Health, or INSP.
"Diabetes is the No. 1 killer in Mexico today," Ruy Lopez Ridaura told The News.
"We are talking about an estimated 10 million people who have the disease. That is about 14 percent of the adult population."
Those figures, which were taken from a study conducted in 2006, represent nearly double the percent of patients diagnosed with the disease in 2000, he said.
"The incidence of diabetes mellitus is growing exponentially, but we are not sure just how fast because the 2000 study was not as precise as the 2006 study," Lopez Ridaura said.
"What we do know is that the disease is on the rise, and by some estimates, as much as 20 percent of the adult population may suffer from diabetes 2 by the year 2020."
Lopez Ridaura said that today nearly one in every four Mexicans over age 50 have the disease, and nearly half are unaware of their condition.
DIABETES MELLITUS
Sometimes called adult-onset diabetes, diabetes mellitus, which is a disorder characterized by high blood glucose, is almost always caused by poor diet and lack of exercise, Lopez Ridaura said.
Unlike type 1 diabetes, which is an inherited disease in which the pancreas does not produce insulin, a hormone required for the control of blood glucose levels leading to hyperglycemia, type 2 diabetes is a condition in which the body is unable to effectively use the insulin that the pancreas produces.
Consequently, Lopez Ridaura said, the treatment of diabetes mellitus is much more complicated.
Type 1 diabetes can be controlled through the regular administration of insulin injections, he said.
However, type 2 requires strict dietary and physical controls such as regular aerobic exercise, the restriction of calories, a lowered consumption of simple carbohydrates and an increased consumption of complex carbohydrates and fiber.
"Only about 5 percent of diabetes type 2 patients in Mexico are treated with insulin, compared to about 25 percent of patients with the disease in the United States," Lopez Ridaura said.
Because of a number of factors, including the high cost of insulin injections, most type 2 diabetes patients in Mexico are instead treated with oral hypoglycemic agents.
"About 80 percent of type 2 diabetes patients are obese," added Arturo Vazquez Leduc, a surgeon specializing in internal medicine at the Universidad La Salle Medical Center.
"Obesity is becoming a major concern for and strain on the Mexican national health system, with roughly 70 percent of the population overweight," Vazquez Leduc said.
Even more alarming, Lopez Ridaura said, is the fact that diabetes patients are at higher risk for high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, renal failure, complications of infections and amputations.
The World Health Organization estimates that diabetes mellitus cuts an average patient's life expectancy by about 10 years, but Lopez Ridaura said that most diabetes patients also suffer a major loss in their quality of life, particularly in their last 10 or 15 years.
"About 20 percent of all diabetes mellitus patients will have an amputation and diabetes is the No. 1 cause of blindness in the country," he said.
"The human toll and the financial toll of the disease are tremendous."
NATIONAL EPIDEMIC
According to the Pan American Health Organization, the Mexican health system is spending about $1.2 billion a year in treating diabetes type 2 patients, and that figure is expected to go up.
"Diabetes mellitus is a national epidemic which is stretching the health system beyond its limits," Vazquez Leduc said.
In Mexico City alone, municipal health authorities estimate that on average 15,000 patients are treated each month at five recently established obesity clinics.
"We are seeing patients who are over 100 kilos overweight and who are desperately in need of urgent care," said Mexico City Health Secretary Armando Ahued Ortega.
"Our city now occupies the second place worldwide in the number of obese adults."
Unfortunately, Lopez Ridaura said, indigenous Mexicans and people with indigenous heritage are genetically predisposed to contracting diabetes mellitus, which means that people here need to be especially careful about what they eat and how much exercise they do.
"This is not to say that we can blame diabetes on our genetics or accept it as an inevitability," Lopez Ridaura said.
"But we can see it as a red flag to be particularly careful about our weight and have our glucose levels checked at least once a year, especially after age 40."
"Our only other defense is to develop a culture of health and proper diet," Vazquez Leduc said.
"We need to take urgent action because our nation's population is getting older and heavier, and diabetes is one of the consequences of that reality." To see more of The News or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.thenews.com.mx/. Copyright (c) 2009, The News, Mexico City Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Copyright (C) 2009, The News, Mexico City