Diabetes is the first non-infectious disease to be given a world day by the World Health Organization and for good reason, said a local health professional.
“Currently it’s estimated that nine per cent of the population of Canada is diabetic,” said Saleem Malik, the medical director of the Centre for Complex Diabetes Care, located in the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre’s medical centre.
It’s estimated that by 2030, one in 10 Canadians will be treated for type 2 diabetes, Malik said.
The CCDC, which opened earlier this year in September, celebrated World Diabetes Day Monday with an open house.
Malik said the rise in type 2 diabetes is linked to the rise in obesity rates across the country. That combined with lack of exercise and a longer life span have led to an “epidemic of type 2 diabetes.”
But what has Malik most concerned is the rise of diabetes in children, also coinciding with the rise in childhood obesity rates.
“That’s a very worrying thing because those people are going to develop complications of diabetes at an earlier age,” he said, citing earlier onset kidney failure and heart disease as examples.
“It has tremendous implications,” he added.
Vice president of strategy, performance and Aboriginal health Lori Marshall said diabetes is something they really need to pay attention to Northwestern Ontario as they know many people throughout the region are suffering from the disease.
The open house is another opportunity to draw people’s attention to the issue, she added.
The CCDC is designed to help people with not just diabetes but other health concerns, said Marshall.
“They may have renal disease. They may have mental health issues. They may have some cardiac issues,” she said. “It’s really looking at that tip of the iceberg of individuals who have lots of problems and we need to help them sort it out.”
The program is intended to serve people for a short-period of time; once patients have everything figured out, they can return to their community health care providers.
