As world marks World Diabetes Day, global action is needed to ensure people have access to high quality tap water
With both diabetes and obesity continuing to rise, Bluewater today marked World Diabetes Day with a call for action on governments worldwide to ensure people have both access and confidence in tap water quality.
WHO says the number of obese children and adolescents (aged five to 19 years) worldwide has risen tenfold in the past four decades, while the number of people with diabetes has risen from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million, a situation Bluewater as a water technology and solutions leader believes is shameful.
It is surely time governments nailed obesity and diabetes by investing heavily in encouraging people of all ages, but especially the young, to adopt better drinking habits that involve moving from sugary drinks to drinking plain water instead. Obesity is a major cause of diabetes and related illnesses such as blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks and lower limb amputation and governments must promote greater understanding that one simple solution is to replace consumption of cheap sugary drinks with clean drinking water.
WHO says simple lifestyle measures can be effective in preventing or delaying the onset diabetes, especially Type 2 which is largely the result of excess body weight and physical inactivity. Type 1 diabetes stems from deficient insulin production due to unknown causes and it is therefore not preventable.
The world health organisation says that achieving and maintaining a healthy body weight, doing regular physical exercise and avoiding sugar through a healthy diet can help prevent and reduce the burden of diabetes.
Drinking water that contains no calories and no sugar not only helps a person to avoid becoming dehydrated but also to flush out excess sugar from blood through urine. Proper hydration is vital for human health, fitness, and diabetes management, but the 285 million people worldwide suffering from diabetes face a higher risk of because the higher levels of blood glucose deplete fluids and that means the kidneys will require more water than average.
Because water is important for diabetes sufferers and in helping to combat obesity it also makes sense to ensure the water being imbibed is of the highest quality. Problem is, tap water quality isn’t a given in many parts of the world as it may contain contaminants such as lead or chemicals that can impact key organs, which puts additional stress on those with the disease endeavouring to manage consequences like reduced immune systems.
A high performance Bluewater water purifier not only delivers water as pure as nature intended and free of practically all known contaminants, including sugar, but also reduces the need for single-use plastic bottle water, which not only pollutes nature, but can also be less clean than purified water as a result of being stored too long or being exposed to hot conditions during storage before landing on store shelves.
Bluewater urges governments to help ensure people have access to tap water they can trust to be pure and to invest in education programs encouraging people to replace sugary drinks with clean drinking water.
BACKGROUND
- The number of people with diabetes has nearly quadrupled since 1980 with almost 422 sufferers worldwide
- Diabetes is one of the top leading causes of death in the world, causing 1.5 million deaths in 2012
- More than 1.9 billion people were overweight in 2016
- The number of diabetes cases among American adults increased by a third during the 1990s, mostly attributed to the growing prevalence of obesity in the United States.