70,000 canaries have diabetes ... and they still don't know!

Some 70,000 canaries do not know that diabetes suffer, a disease that causes more spending on the islands than cancer, Alzheimer's and HIV together and that causes situations of labor discrimination, has warned today the Federation of Diabetes Associations of the Canary Islands.

The president of the Federation of Diabetes Associations of the Canary Islands, Julián González, referred in a parliamentary commission to the situation of this "pandemic" that in his judgment is causing suffering and causes a huge expense to public health, and said that he is inhands of the groups "change the course".

It is necessary to urgently prepare a comprehensive diabetes care plan on the islands with its corresponding financial record, since in 2016 the Parliament approved a non -law proposition on this issue that did not have "one euro", which hassupposed "laughing from patients in the Canary Islands," González warned.

However, the representative of the diabetes associations in the archipelago said that it is justice to recognize that the Ministry of Health is working in the initial phase of this plan and the Federation has evidence that it will have subsequent participation in its processing.

In the last two years, diabetes attention has changed "a lotfor early detection and against obesity.

In this regard, he claimed that the specific supply regime be adjusted because products "that fattening our population" are being subsidized, something serious that must be limited.

According to the data presented by González in Parliament, diabetes causes the highest health expense, with 25 percent of the total budget and in its opinion, this percentage would be greater if an exhaustive study of this pathology was carried out.

Type 2 diabetes affects 15.6 percent of the population over 18 in the islands but 6.8 percent of them, about 70,000 canaries, do not know that they suffer from this disease and therefore their complications.

It is also estimated that between 100 and 120 children debut annually with diabetes in the islands, the fundamental problem is that 40 percent of the adult population has overweight or obesity and another important indicator is that diabetes mellitus is the first cause of death in deathwomen.

In fact, a comparative study conducted with data from 13 autonomous communities reveals that in the Canary Islands there are seven times more deaths from diabetes than in Madrid.

There is a global diabetes mortality rate of 38 percent but the Federation has "a fight" with health so that deaths are correctly registered, that is, with due association to this pathology, which in its opinion would demonstrate a great incidencegreater of this pathology.

Among diabetes complications are diabetic retinopathy (15 percent), ischemic heart disease (16 percent), neuropathies (45 percent) and more than 54 percent of patients under dialysis suffer from this disease.

It is also the first accuses of non -traumatic amputations and causes 32 percent of renal failure transplants.

It also causes 34 percent of hospital costs in the Canary Islands although according to Julián González, this figure is outdated.

Also 55 percent of people with diabetes do not comply with glycemic control and the Federation has requested a serious study to find out what are the causes "of the enormous complications" that occur and that in the Canary Islands, he added, they get to multiply until6 times.

Also in the Canary Islands there are situations of labor discrimination because they have diabetes, something that must be changed, then,González said as an example, in the United Kingdom there are plane pilots with diabetes and that they fly so, he wondered, "how is it possible not?"

In addition, he continued, there are parents who have to stop working because they must go to puncture their children during school hours, so he demanded that formulas be studied to avoid this situation.

"The sad thing about all this is that it is avoidable but it seems that investing in complications does not matter but it is not done in preventing: this must be changed urgently," said Julián González.