In Singapore today, one in three people suffer with diabetes. That seems like a shocking statistic, but the future looks even bleaker, as the disease will affect the wellbeing of one million Singaporeans by 2050. That one in three figures will rise to one in two people being diabetic by the age of 70, and 15% of the adult population will suffer from the disease, compared with 11.3% now. Moreover, the rising rates of obesity in Singapore looks set to affect the country’s wellness even further, pushing up the risks of diabetes, stroke, heart and kidney failure, and blindness.
According to new research by the National University of Singapore’s Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, ageing and obesity are the two main factors that will drive Singapore’s number of diabetics up in the next 40 years. The University’s Dean, Chia Kee Seng, sounded the warning that academic knowledge has to be translated into action. As he told more than 400 international participants at the opening of the inaugural Singapore International Public Health Conference, ‘We can now project the impact of proposed obesity reduction programmes on the prevalence of diabetes in Singapore in 2050. We hope this kind of capability can help bridge the gap between research and policies.’
The researcher who worked out these figures was the University’s Dr Alex Cook, who commented that if Singapore manages to keep obesity in check, it could reduce the number of diabetics by 15 to 20% by 2050, or, in other words, there could be 150,000 to 200,000 fewer diabetic patients. In an opening address, Dr Amy Khor, Minister of State for Health and Manpower, said ‘We hope to see patients’ and population’s needs better identified,’ and the Cook’s work ‘exemplifies the kind of approach we need – an academic endeavour that explicitly envisions and works towards real-world application of their research work.’
So how might this work be put into action? Professor Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said in his keynote speech that Britain has cut out 6,000 premature deaths and saved £1.5 billion (S$3 billion) in health-care costs by cutting less than a yearly quarter teaspoon of salt from the average diet. Last year, Denmark became the first country in the world to impose a “fat tax” on food such as butter, pizza and sausages, and New York has recently banned 470ml large sugary drinks. According to Piot, much can be done, and ‘the challenge is to say it is unacceptable that one in two people here will be diabetic.’
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