World Diabetes Day 2008

Every 10 seconds a person dies from diabetes-related causes.
Every 10 seconds two people develop diabetes.
Over 250 million people live with diabetes worldwide. In 2025, this figure will reach 380 million.
More than 200 children a day develop type 1 diabetes.
In developing countries, close to 75,000 children live with diabetes in desperate circumstances.
Type 1 diabetes is increasing fastest in pre-school children, at a rate of 5% each year.Type 2 diabetes has been reported in children as young as eight.
Type 2 diabetes affects children in both developed and developing countries.

I'd like to call special attention to those 200 children who develop type 1 diabetes every day. Today was picked as World Diabetes Day because it is the birthday of Frederick Banting, who along with Charles Best, is credited with discovering insulin in 1921. Before that discovery, those 200 children were condemned to death within about six weeks of diagnosis. Even today, in many parts of the world, insulin is hard or impossible to get. For those, diabetes is still a death sentence. Thanks to these 2 men, my son is still alive.

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