Diabetes and obesity - the new pandemic

We don’t have the luxury of time to deal with this epidemic - it’s as big a threat as global warming and bird flu. Solutions are urgently needed, and involve more basic issues than more exercise and correcting diet. While exercise and diet are pivotal, solutions really lie in the rethinking national policies on urban and social planning, agriculture policy, education, transport and other areas. We must change substantially our living conditions and environment.

The path to eliminating obesity is clear and involves strong leadership by our politicians, and intersectoral partnerships of government departments including health, sport, education, agriculture, urban planning and transport, the pharmaceutical industry, the media and partnerships with the food industry to encourage healthier products.

This may well be the single most important challenge for public health in the 21st century. It is a battle that we can and must win.

The huge cost of diabetes is a major incentive along with lifestyle change for the biotech industry to be looking for new targets for drug development. Among the local biotech aspirants are DIA-B with their new drug for type 2 diabetes, ISF402, now entering human clinical trials, Chemgenex with its exciting platform of targets for obesity and type 2 diabetes and Metabolic’s search for a drug for obesity.