Diagnosis too late, inappropriate follow-up, nearly 700,000 French people are unaware that they have diabetes. To raise awareness, AFD is organizing the national prevention week from June 3 to 9.
” It is estimated that 700,000 French people are suffering from type 2 diabetes and are still unaware of it, it is too much, too much! Judge Gérard Raymond, president of the Association française des diabétiques (AFD) which is launching the second edition of the “National Diabetes Prevention Week”, from June 3 to 9. To reverse this trend, the association is mobilizing to reach out to patients who ignore each other. Throughout the week, volunteers from AFD’s 105 local associations will offer the population information sessions, little quizzes of a few minutes to recall the dangers of this serious disease. “ The development of type 2 diabetes can go unnoticed for many years: it takes on average 5 to 10 years between the onset of the first hyperglycaemia and the diagnosis of diabetes., continues the president of AFD. However, it is often during the first serious complications that the person consults. “
Disabling or even fatal complicationsIn the eyes, excess sugar in the blood weakens the wall of the capillaries, causing a loss of tightness. The result is the rupture and then the bursting of the retinal vessels. It is diabetic retinopathy, a serious complication that affects 50% of type 2 diabetic patients. In France, diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of blindness before the age of 65. Another example, at the level of the heart and blood vessels. Diabetes increases the risk of hypertension, atheromatous plaques, and therefore the risk of heart attack, or stroke. On average, complications of the heart and arteries are 2 to 3 times more frequent in diabetics than in the rest of the population. Hence the interest in not missing out on the first signs of the disease! As Jean-Pierre, 56, AFD volunteer, who was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes at 39 years old, reminds us. ” The diagnosis could have taken place ten years earlier. During a medical visit, the small test strip revealed sugar in the urine. In agreement with the doctor, I reduced, or even eliminated, the sugar in my consumption because it seemed to me that the problem was only the sugar, continues the patient. On the other hand, I continued to organize business meals, to eat too much and especially too much fat, to drink alcohol and sodas, not to do physical activity … »Following the problems of hypertension, ten years after the diagnosis falls. “ At the hospital, I was told that the first medication for type 2 diabetes is to exercise and eat well. Although I am not always a conscientious patient, since the diagnosis I have adapted my behavior and the doctors my treatment. But, I think I could have started 10 years earlier. “For the national association, a single watchword: diabetes should not be taken lightly. This pathology is placed in the category of “serious” diseases which causes about 30,000 deaths each year.
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