Member News
By George Howarth MP - 15th September 2010
Five hundred people in every constituency have type 1 diabetes. MPs are failing them all.
We don’t know we are doing it, but every time we talk about the growing levels of diabetes and the need to combat rising obesity, we are overlooking a serious and increasing problem. We’re ignoring people with type 1 diabetes, some of them children, whose condition can’t be prevented by changing their lifestyle.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition, which means that it happens when the body’s own immune system attacks and kills the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. It carries the risk of devastating complications including blindness and kidney disease and reduces life expectancy by 20 years.
There are over 25,000 children with type 1 diabetes in the UK. They will never grow out of it and face multiple daily insulin injections and finger prick blood tests, just to stay alive. Estimates put the number of children and adults living with the condition as high as 390,000.
Nearly all (98.6 per cent) of young people with diabetes have type 1. They and their families face sometimes overwhelming obstacles in living with the condition. These include tackling an insulin pump ‘postcode lottery’, with access to this treatment gold standard as low as 0.4 per cent or high as 17 per cent in different parts of the country.
Type 1 can have a financial impact. A recent survey of parents reported that 85 per cent had seen their household income diminish as a result of having a family member with type 1. It can also have huge psychological cost, in the same survey half of parents said that their children had been bullied.
This afternoon I'll be leading a Westminster Hall debate on young people and diabetes, discussing these and other issues with my colleagues and the minister.
Type 1 diabetes can not be prevented or treated through changes in lifestyle. Medical research is vital to combating the condition. Despite this, last year the government spent only £6m on research ‘applicable’ to type 1. In the same timeframe the US government spent £281m and the Australian government spent £36m.
It is vital that we debate and understand type 1 diabetes, so that we can help young people and adults deal with the issues they face. And so that we can help support research to better treat, prevent and ultimately find the cure.
Article Comments
I really welcome this debate. There is so much ignorance about how serious this condition is.
In schools children are calculating and administering their own insulin doses. There is no element of choice. They know they have to do this to stay alive. This applies whether you have an insulin pump or not.
Having a hypoglycaemic attack is a constant worry, and children both in Primary and Secondary schools shoulder this worry and still get on and learn with their peers.
It is shocking that a chronic life threatening condition is so ignored. Our children have it tough, the short term complications such as passing out due to hypos and the long term complications such as blindness, amputations and kidney didease.
I am proud to say you would never know my son carries this knowledge in his head. He enjoys life, whilst giving diabetes the respect it needs. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of some of the adults he encounters.
Marie Betts
15th Sep 2010 at 5:22 pm
Why can't we share the research that we, the US and Australia have undertaken? The total cost of research into the same topic by all three countries is GBP323M. That is an awful lot of public money in these global recession times, Shouldn't we be pooling our resources together to find out how to combat diabetes, as it appears to be affecting us all, whichever country we are living in.
Jacquie Elliott
15th Sep 2010 at 10:43 am
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