Palau’s Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) “Hybrid” Survey shows that 22.2% of adults living in Palau have diabetes and 36% are almost there, meaning that nearly half of Palau’s adult population are being affected by diabetes.
As Palau joins the world to mark the World Diabetes Day, themed “Access to Diabetes Care”, it notes that half of its population are suffering from the effects of diabetes. Not only does living with diabetes affect people’s quality of life, it creates challenges in health care system and affect health care costs.
“It is important that we make sure there is good access to medical services to those affected by diabetes and that there is good education to prevent diabetes,” stated President Whipps. “This is caused by our poor eating habits and lack of exercise. This is now affecting children as well and it is important that we continue to strengthen our work to prevent diabetes,” he added.
Presidential Proclamation states that “obesity, lack of physical exercise, use of tobacco products, excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages and over-portioned meals and poor nutritional intake such as eating foods high in 3M’s (salt: mecherocher, fats: melaok, and sugar: merkos) leads to diabetes and other non-communicable diseases.
It further states that obesity leads to diabetes and “is a growing threat to future generations of Palau”. The proclamation calls for stronger national resolve to address NCD, particularly those habits that leads to NCD.
World Diabetes Day falls on this Sunday, November 14, 2021. Do your part in reducing the 3M’s(melaok, mecherocher and merkos) from your food and not add to the 36% or the 22% diabetes statistics.