For the first time, WHO has included diabetes among the most fatal diseases, diabetes appears in the number eight position of the ten great "murderers" with 1.4 million victims.Its entry into the ranking displaces tuberculosis that descends to number fifteen.
Heart attacks, hemorrhages and cerebral infarctions lead the list for another year, as responsible for 17 million deaths in 2011 (last available data).Also chronic diseases (cancer, respiratory diseases, cardiovascular ...) overcome those of infectious origin.
Diabetes appears as one of the greatest causes of mortality, although obesity could also have also been.Excess weight is the most powerful risk factor for the emergence of the most common diabetes, to the point that the new concept of "diabesity" begins to coin.
Diabetes does not kill, but their complications do.There are people who spend years with glucose fired in their blood without symptoms.In the long term, the disease damages the heart and kidneys, vision, produces nerve injuries and skin damage."The number of deaths is probably more bulky than that WHO recognizes many of the deaths from diabetes are hidden in mortality from cardiovascular and renal problems," explained Esteban Jódar, head of endocrinology of the Quirón Hospital in Madrid.