Reunion wants to end the diabetes massacre

In the absence of an interministerial decree which prohibits the addition of sugar in food products sold overseas, is still not applied. In Reunion, one in ten suffers from diabetes.

“Diabetes: let’s stop the massacre, apply the Lurel law”, “We suck on our backs”. They were 500 demonstrators this Saturday morning to parade in the streets of Saint-Denis (Reunion) with this slogan brandished on the signs. Their claim: to enforce the Lurel law on the sugar content in food sold in this overseas department (Dom). This law adopted by the French Parliament on May 21, 2013 and published in June of the same year prohibits the addition of sugar in food products. Several major brands are used to sweetening their products more strongly in the overseas departments than in metropolitan France, for marketing reasons.

On the occasion of the vote of this law, the rapporteur in the Senate Michel Vergoz, elected PS of Reunion, had explained that in Martinique fruit yoghurts produced locally “contain 27% to 50% more added sugars”. For drinks, it’s the same thing: “A can of soda contains 14 g of added sugars in Martinique, against 10 g [en métropole] “, According to the socialist senator of Martinique, Maurice Antiste, interviewed by The world in 2013.

However, overconsumption of sugar is extremely harmful to health. One in 10 Reunionese has diabetes, according to the president of the Mutualité de la Réunion, Théodore Hoarau, at the origin of the rally. “This disease is responsible for 250 deaths per year, or 4 times the metropolitan gross death rate due to diabetes, and 1000 amputations per year”. “Its cost is 560 million euros, it is three times more than in metropolitan France,” he added, pointing to the “vicious business” of diabetes from which, according to him, certain associations and the agro-food or pharmaceutical industry.

Another impact of sugar on the health of overseas populations: in the overseas departments, there is a prevalence of obesity of 22% in Martinique and 23% in Guadeloupe, against 14.5% in France, particularly affecting women and men. children (9% of children are obese in Guadeloupe and Martinique, against 3.5% in France).