Type 2 Diabetes
Type 2 Diabetes Recovery
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Type 2 Diabetes is a chronic disease that results from the body’s ineffective use of insulin, a hormone made by the pancreas to help enable our bodies to use the glucose in food for energy.
The WHO estimates 422 million people in 2014 had diabetes worldwide, and 95% of cases were Type 2 Diabetes. This metabolic disorder raises the risk of kidney disease, cardiovascular disease in 2019 it killed 1.5 million people. The WHO estimated that by 2017 spending on adults with diabetes had risen to USD$ 850 billion.
The global prevalence of diabetes has increased from 4.7% of the adult population in 1980, to 8.5% by 2014. This reflects global increases in overweight and obesity, the key risk factor for disease. In Australia Type 2 Diabetes affects 1 million Australians, is one of the top 10 causes of death, and was estimated by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) to cost AUD$2.7 billion or 2.3% of total health expenditure.
The good news
If possible the ideal is to prevent Type 2 Diabetes by:
• being physically active,
• maintaining a healthy weight,
• eating a diet low in saturated fat, low in added sugar and high in fruit, vegetables and fibre,
However, if you contract Type 2 Diabetes there are medications and treatments to help. The great news is that for many people at high risk, or with diagnosed disease, it can be reversed.
Interventions that combine weight loss combined with exercise can cause remission from Type 2 Diabetes, and even 2-3kg of weight loss combined with increased physical activity has been shown to reduce the risk of Type 2 Diabetes by up to 47%.
Community sport-based interventions have proven successful, across a range of sports, at reducing markers of Type 2 Diabetes. Sport Prescriptions wants to make it easier to establish, measure, report on, evaluate and expand these programs. We want to help more people reverse their Type 2 Diabetes, and to support the practitioners and programs help them succeed.
