A leading expert in diabetes screening and prevention says Australia needs to seriously consider implementing a sugar tax to tackle the epidemic.
Professor Stephen Colagiuri was the only Australian contributor to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) inaugural global report on Diabetes.
According to the report, the number of people worldwide with diabetes has quadrupled since 1980, with an estimated 422 million adults living with the disease in 2014.
Globally, diabetes and higher-than-optimal blood glucose together caused 3.7 million deaths.
Professor Colagiuri said Australia was about average in the total number of people with diabetes.
“We are also regrettably average in the increasing rates of diabetes that we see in Australia,” he said.
“And we’re fairly high up on the list of countries with regard to overweight and obesity, which is a major driver of diabetes.”
Professor Colagiuri said a sugar tax was one way the Government could tackle the problem.
“A sugar tax will clearly not be the only solution to the problem, but there has never been a successful public health intervention which has not involved some form of legislation and regulation, and leaving the changes to be made on a voluntary basis simply doesn’t work,” he said.
“Whether you look at cigarette consumption, whether you look at road safety … we do need to actually try and create the environment that’s required in order to help people to make the changes that are required in order to prevent weight gain and in turn prevent the development of diabetes.”
Diabetes rate in Indigenous people among highest in world
Professor Colagiuri said the report was also a reminder of the need to better cater for communities who are not receiving the type of attention and access to essential care for diabetes they need.
“Even in Australia, a country with universal health coverage, we have particular groups like Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and people from certain culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who have needs similar to those in developing countries,” he said.
“For remote communities, access to quality care, essential medicines and technologies can be problematic.
“Their rates of diabetes and complication such as kidney disease, especially for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, still remain among the highest in the world.”
The release of the WHO report coincides with today’s World Health Day.