Diabetes – a silent, but most deadly disease

The Belize City Council, in association with Body 2000 and the Diabetes Association, launched its Get Moving Belize program on Monday. It’s an initiative created to get citizens more aware of their bodies, and the benefits of being healthy. The partnership with the Belize Diabetes Association is important, because the disease, dubbed the silent killer, affects many Belizeans every year. While the condition is congenital, it can also be produced by an unhealthy lifestyle, focus on eating. The Belize Diabetes Association was on hand for the launch of the program, and did free testing all morning. One man who walked in and got tested had a glucose content of more than four hundred. For context, the normal level is between seventy and one hundred and twenty. As News Five found out, diabetes is still, for many Belizeans, a little known disease, but deadly nonetheless.

Anthony Castillo, President, Diabetes Association

“Diabetes is a serious situation in Belize. Unfortunately, not every person takes the condition seriously. Since last year, the fourteenth of November, which was World Diabetes Day, the International Diabetes Federation brought out their statistics, which placed Belize at fifteen point eight percent of its population living with diabetes. This is saying that over 50,000 Belizeans are living with the condition, some knowingly and some unknowingly. It is a serious condition. That is extremely high. A person’s blood sugar should be between seventy and one hundred and twenty. As you recall, looking at that person who get tested, he was over four hundred and he was saying that he is not diabetic. He has not been to a doctor and he has never been diagnosed as living with diabetes. Diabetes is dubbed the silent killer. That gentleman has no side effects, he’s feeling quite fine, but with his sugar level over four hundred, it is a great concern. Persons walking around with four hundred plus could go into a diabetic coma, could develop a stroke, and there are many complications. Your internal organs are being affected, although he is saying that he is not feeling ill, his internal organs are suffering including his eyes and everything else within the body is suffering with those high levels of glucose.”

Reporter

Anthony Castillo

“So in a case like that, would the Diabetes Association kinda push this person to go straight to the hospital?”

Anthony Castillo

“What we would do is that we would urge him to go to a medical facility immediately. If he goes to a health center or a hospital at this time, he would more than likely be given a bed and placed on some type of medical like insulin through the IV to reduce that high sugar level.”

The gentleman in question promised to head straight to a medical facility, though there’s no telling if he did so or not. Still, the Diabetes Association got contact information and will be following up with him.