In the UK, 5 million people are projected to have type 2 diabetes by 2025. Ninety per cent of people with diabetes have type 2, compared with 8% who have type 1, and 2% with rarer forms of the disease. According to the World Health Organization, 422 million people had diabetes in 2014, compared with 108 million in 1980. Yet despite the fact that we know how to avoid type 2 diabetes – and how to send it into remission – numbers continue to soar.ĭiabetes is a global epidemic. “I knew it was serious,” she says.Īlthough it was once believed to be an inevitably degenerative disease, the good news is that a landmark 2017 paper from researchers at the University of Glasgow and the University of Newcastle found that patients who lost significant amounts of weight – about 15kg – were able to send their type 2 diabetes into remission. It is a horrible, frightening disease – which is why Kelly Perrin, a 31-year-old finance worker from Rushden, Northamptonshire, burst into tears when she was diagnosed in January. The life-expectancy of someone with type 2 diabetes is reduced by a decade. People with diabetes can go blind, have heart attacks or strokes, or require amputations. Three out of five cases of type 2 diabetes are preventable, but the consequences can be severe. Not to be confused with type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune condition which is not associated with lifestyle, type 2 diabetes is very often linked to obesity and inactivity. Halliday was able to manage his diabetes through diet and exercise, because he has type 2 diabetes. It made me realise how much of my life I was wasting by not living it to the full.” More importantly, Halliday got his life back. The pounds fell off – he now weighs 95kg (15st) and his diabetes is in remission. He started playing badminton and football. He eliminated fatty, carbohydrate-rich and processed foods from his diet – no more pasties and crisps. Halliday started venturing outside the house, to the end of the street at first, then further. “I thought: ‘I’m going to eat whatever I want, I don’t care.” But an unrelated health scare in March 2018 gave him the jolt he needed. At first, Halliday, a 34-year- old NHS worker from Thornby, Northamptonshire, went into denial. At his heaviest, he weighed 136kg (21st 6lb) and had a 42-inch waist.
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