Health, the challenge of “ urban diabetes ” living in the city increases the risk

In Italy, 52 percent of the 3.3 million people with live diabetes in the top 100 cities – in Rome the population with diabetes amounts to 6.5 percent, against a national average of 5.4 – a person with diabetes on 3 lies in the 14 metropolitan cities

Rome, 4 July 2017 – In the world there are 2 out of 3 people with diabetes who live in an urban environment, according to the data of the Idf – International Diabetes Federation, and will become 3 out of 4 within 25 years. This is also true for Italy, as evidenced by the analysis conducted by Health City Institute on “Urban Diabetes” on the peninsula: 22 million people, 36 percent of the national population, live in the 14 metropolitan cities, which host 1, 2 million people with diabetes or over 1 diabetic out of 3 in Italy; Overall, 52 percent of the 3.3 million people with diabetes live in the first one hundred Italian urban nuclei.

The concept of “Urban Diabetes or Urban Diabetes” is at the center of the two days organized in Rome, with the participation of the maximum national experts, representatives of institutions and international guests, promoted by Italian Barometer Diabetes Observatory (IBDO) Foundation e From the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” to celebrate the tenth edition of the Italian Barometer Diabetes & Obesity Forum in conduct in Rome, with the patronage of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Ministry of Health, Conference of the Regions and the Autonomous Provinces, National Association of Italian Municipalities (Anci) and Roma Capitale.

“With ‘Urban Diabetes’ you want to define the diabetic disease that concerns people who live in urbanized areas, an environment that as is well shown influences the way people live, eat, move, all factors that have an impact on risk to develop diabetes, “explains Andrea Lenzi, president of Health City Institute. “Demographic and social aspects are also important – adds -. In cities there is greater risk of fragility: especially for the elderly, whose number is increasingly higher. And fragility is a risk factor for adequate control of the disease.”

The term “Urban Diabetes” was coined by the Cities Changing Diabetes program, a partnership between the University College London (UCL) and the Danish Steno Diabetes Center born with the aim of creating an international collaboration movement that proposes and finds solutions and best Practice to face the growing number of people with diabetes and obesity in the world, and the consequent economic and social burden, starting from the tissue and the urban experience that so much has in this phenomenon. The program have already joined Mexico City, Copenhagen, Houston, Shanghai, Tianjin, Vancouver, Johannesburg and Rome, protagonist for 2017.

“Unfortunately Rome does not escape the rule that sees diabetes as an emergency in the cities – Simona Frontoni, president of the Italian Barometer Diabetes scientific committee says & Obesity Forum and Diabetologist in the capital -. With 6.5 percent of people with diabetes on the resident population, Rome is far beyond the national average of 5.4, as Istat tells us. Furthermore, within the city there is a great variability between central and peripheral areas, more or less disadvantaged, with values ranging from 5.9 to 7.3 percent, also this is a clear evidence of the impact that the environment has on the development of the disease.”The” Atlas 2017 “report of the Cities Changing Diabetes program for Rome also confirms for the capital the same fragility typical of the city environment: the number of elderly people who live alone, which represent almost 30 percent of the over-64, e sedentary lifestyle, demonstrated by the time spent in the car for travel – Out of 1 million and 339 thousand people who move every day for work or study reasons, 1 in 5 takes over 45 minutes for the trip and almost 60 percent use the car.

“Initiatives such as the Cities Changing Diabetes program for Rome and more generally the Italian Barometer Diabetes conference & Obesity Forum that Ibdo has been organizing for 10 years, have a great merit: they compare clinical, academics, political decision -makers and national institutions, local administrations, civil society and third sector and favor dialogue, facilitating the research and refinement of solutions shared to the health challenges of the third millennium, “concludes Renato Lauro, Ibdo president.