Why do so many of us have diabetes?

Helen Baker was not one for exercise.

The 39-year-old from Snaith in East Yorkshire used her car for even the shortest of journeys and as the years ticked by her weight crept up. It would have continued that way had a routine check-up at the doctors not made her realise that she was in danger of following both her dad and her brother on the path to type-2 diabetes.

“It wasn’t a surprise to be told that my glucose levels were higher than they should be, but it was a wake up call,” says Helen, who now works as a project manager. “I knew I wasn’t particularly healthy, but when I was told I was at risk of developing diabetes it really brought me up short.

“My dad had been diagnosed in his 40s and I had seen what he had gone through. At that moment I decided that enough was enough.”

Helen admits that she was overweight and had always struggled with maintaining a healthy diet, but with a bleak future ahead, she was determined to slim down. Since she was told she was borderline diabetic she has lost in excess of three stone and last year completed the Great North Run half marathon in aid of Diabetes UK.

“I won’t lie, it hasn’t been easy and there are times that I still struggle. I do slip back in bad habits occasionally, but if I don’t manage to keep the weight down and lead a more healthier lifestyle I know exactly what awaits me.

“Diabetes has caused problems with my dad’s vision and he was in his early 60s when he was told he couldn’t drive. That may not seem like a major thing, but he’s still relatively young to have had something which was so crucial to his independence taken away from him.

“I don’t want that to be me.”

It’s an insight that many of those with pre-diabetes, which has no obvious physical symptoms, lack. According to a new study, the prevalence of pre-diabetes in the England has tripled in the space of eight years. There are currently around 254,000 people diagnosed with diabetes in Yorkshire and Humberside and a further estimated 63,000 who have Type 2 but have yet to be diagnosed. Those from poorer backgrounds are at the greatest risk and with more than a third of adults now on the verge of developing the condition, the situation is only likely to get worse.

“In the absence of concerted and effective efforts to reduce the risk, the number of people with diabetes is likely to increase steeply in coming years,” said the authors of the report, which was published in the journal BMJ Open. “This rapid rise in such a short period of time is particularly disturbing because it suggests that large changes on a population level can occur in a relatively short period of time.

“If there is no co-ordinated response, an increase in the number of people with diabetes will ensue, with consequent increase in health expenditure, morbidity and cardiovascular mortality.”

Barbara Young, chief executive of Diabetes UK, puts it even more starkly. Currently 10 per cent of the NHS’ entire budget is spent on diabetes and she says that any further strain on scant resources could destroy the service entirely.

“We were shocked by the report, not because of the rise, but because of the scale of the rise,” she says. “Each year, of those with pre-diabetes between five and 10 per cent will go on to develop full blown diabetes, but even that borderline state causes problems for the vascular system, eyes and kidneys.

“We need more intervention. Everyone might know that being overweight is not good for you, but the reality is that the voluntary principle is not working. We need doctors to prescribe activity and diet support and we need the Government to wake up and smell the coffee.

“Many of the problems ministers are trying to tackle within the NHS, like reducing the number of people coming into A&E as emergency cases are linked to the rise in diabetes. One in six hospital patients already has the condition and if this situation is not tackled it will wreck the health service. This is a crisis and the Government is sleep walking into it.”

The figures laid bare by the report are just the tip of the iceberg and it is estimated that only 10 per cent of those with pre-diabetes are aware they have the condition.

“Type-2 diabetes is a life long condition that already affects more than three million people and can lean lead to serious health complications such as heart disease, stroke, amputation and blindness,” says Young. “We need to make sure that those at risk are made more aware of this because in up to 80 per cent of cases those risks could be avoided or at the very least delayed by making lifestyle changes.

“Programmes such as the NHS Health Check is doing an important job, but at the moment not everyone who is eligible is coming forward. Some may be receiving treatment for high blood pressure or cholesterol, but not all will and we are concerned that if people are identified as high risk they may not be getting the support they need.”

Plumber Kevin Pocock, from Harrogate, knows how quickly situations can change. A qualified jiujitsu instructor and keen scuba diver, he’d always thought of himself as reasonably fit and active. However, in 2007 at the age of 46 he suffered a heart attack.

“It changed everything. I had to stop work and because I couldn’t exercise like I had in the past I soon began to put on weight. Before I knew it, I had gone from 16st to 26st.”

Kevin, now 53, admits that for a while he was in denial about his growing waistline and it took a blunt consultant cardiologist to make him realise the impact it was having on his health.

“It was 2009, he told me I had type-2 diabetes and would likely be dead in six months. I was a bit taken aback, but I needed someone to be that direct. If he hadn’t said what he did, I doubt that I’d be here now.”

Determined to regain his old life, Kevin enrolled at his local Weight Watchers class and despite the early humiliations was determined not to slip back into old ways.

“I remember going out on my old push bike and it collapsed underneath me. I went to buy a new one from a local cycle shop and they said because of my size I’d need a bike which was reinforced. I was mortified, but I also knew that if I gave up that would be it. I would leave my wife without a husband and my son without a father.”

Gradually Kevin’s 20 minute walks became an hour and before too long he was spending weekends cycling to York and back. In 2012 he returned to work and last year he was told that he was no longer at a risk of diabetes.

“It’s been an expensive business,” he says. “I’ve had to buy a whole new wardrobe, but if the last few years have taught be anything it’s that good health is priceless.”