From left: Acting Senior Medical Officer with responsibility for Non-Communicable Diseases in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Ingrid Cumberbatch; Advocate for Type 1 diabetes, Krystal Boyea; Ian Woosnam; and CEO of the Maria Holder Diabetes Centre for the Caribbean, Cally Boyea, in conversation at the official launch of the Ian Woosnam Type 1 Diabetes Registry for Barbados yesterday at the Diabetes Foundation.
Across the world, there has been an increase in the number of people living with diabetes.
This is coming from Acting Senior Medical Officer with responsibility for Non-Communicable Diseases in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Ingrid Cumberbatch, who delivered remarks on behalf of the Minister of Health at the official launch of the Ian Woosnam Type 1 Diabetes Registry yesterday at the Diabetes Foundation.
Furthermore, the health complications that can result from it are many. “Globally, according to the World Health Organisation, the number of people (living) with diabetes has risen from 108 million in 1980 to 442 million in 2014. Diabetes is a major cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and lower limb amputation.”
Dr. Cumberbatch stated that Type 1 diabetes – which is insulin dependent and to which the registry being launched is dedicated – is one that tends to affect the younger population.
“Type 1 diabetes – previously known as insulin dependent, juvenile or childhood onset diabetes – is characterised by deficient insulin production and requires daily administration insulin. The cause of Type 1 diabetes is not known and it is not preventable with current knowledge.”
She said that Type 1 diabetes, which is less common than Type 2 diabetes, affects around one per cent of our population and globally, it is around five per cent, but this figure is increasing and if not aggressively addressed by health-care practitioners of the particular person being affected, then it can lead to life-threatening complications in some instances.
“Around the world, the prevalence of Type 1 diabetes is approximately five per cent. In Barbados, Type 1 diabetes affects one per cent of the population, but as has been shown internationally, the incidence or number of new cases of Type 1 diabetes has been increasing. This increase has been by at least 2.8 per cent and as much as five per cent in some jurisdictions.
“It is also known that Type 1 diabetes presents such challenges as causing severe life-threatening symptoms and being associated with very high mortality rates, if not aggressively and consistently treated and managed by the person with Type 1 diabetes as well as their health-care providers,” she added.