(thank you to those who have commented on my recent posts, I appreciate your feedback)
Diabetes Numbers
No I am not going to talk to you about incidence (new cases) or prevalence (all current cases) of diabetes. Not going to talk about how the rate of new cases is trending upwards while new cases in the young are threatening the life span of an entire generation. I am not even going to talk about how diabetes is related to blood sugars that run higher than normal for extended periods of time because the body is unable to produce enough insulin or has a resistance to the insulin that it does produce. (Insulin is the trigger that tells the body to move the sugar out of the bloodstream)
No. I am talking about different numbers. I mean the kind that end in lots of zeros and start with this lovely symbol $. Money Money Money.
Now I suppose you are expecting me to tell you how the rising cost of obesity and its subsequent diseases is straining our health care system - nope. If you REALLY want insight into disease - sometimes you have to look at the profit side.
According to an article from the AP and published by Yahoo Finance, global sales of both treatment (medication, insulin pumps) and testing devices (glucometers, strips) is up double digits year after year starting in 2004. The article also specifically notes sales of products from Johnson and Johnson which have topped two billion each of the last four years. It seems to me that some companies would have a lot to lose if we (health promotion folks) could prevent diabetes. Oh by the way, the article notes global sales for diabetes treatment to have been OVER 30 billion dollars in 2009.
See the numbers yourself here as I am not supposed to republish their info. :)
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