Diabetes is a pandemic we shouldn’t forget: Test yourself healthy

With the last couple of years’ intense focus on the COVID-pandemic, we tend to overlook one of the world’s deadliest pandemics; type 2 diabetes. But looking at the global effort on the coronavirus there are some powerful takeaways that we should learn from in relation to diabetes. Getting yourself tested is fundamental measure in the fight against any pandemic.

The World Health Organisation estimates that more than 422 million people have type 2 diabetes worldwide, and 1.5 million deaths are directly attributed to the disease each year. This makes type 2 diabetes a global health disaster on a pandemic level. But one could wonder why we haven’t experienced a global test effort as we have seen with the coronavirus when tests have proven to be such a powerful and popular tool in fighting a pandemic.

One of those wondering is Dr. Colin Robertson, Scientific Research Specialist, and Chief Product Officer, at Zinzino – a company that provides test-based, scientifically proven nutritional supplements with a portfolio of medical blood tests. The team has developed a long-term blood sugar test in the fight against the diabetes pandemic. A test he hopes will prove to be a strong weapon to break the alarming numbers.

“When the COVID-19 pandemic hit there was a global rollout of tests, features, and control, and yet we’ve been living with the diabetes pandemic for years and we’re not telling people to get tested. And I’m saying no, let’s take this seriously. Let’s test,” he argues as continues: “I’ve been waiting my whole career for the opportunity to empower people at home making them take ownership over their health.”

The newly developed blood sugar test gives the user a 3-month average of his or her blood sugar numbers and will tell whether or not you are at risk of developing type 2 diabetes as the long-term consequence of having too high numbers is pre-diabetes. According to Dr. Robertson, high numbers don’t mean you’ll be diagnosed with diabetes, but it means that you should probably start acting as there is still plenty of hope to stabilize those numbers.

“You must remember that pre-diabetes is 100 percent reversible. You can fix that. You can live better. The test enables you to implement some simple but very effective changes. That’s why tests are so powerful,” Dr. Robertson explains.

A silent killer
Type 2 diabetes is mostly widespread in low- and middle-income countries and during the last couple of decades, there has been an increase in cases among children and teenagers. Dr. Robertson therefore also believes that as many as possible should let themselves get tested as it’s close to impossible to describe the average or typical type 2 diabetes patient:

“It might sound very profound, but type 2 diabetes is a silent killer. People do sleepwalk into it. And that’s what concerns me. Millions of people could live better just by knowing. Prevention is the cure. Get tested!”

Zinzino is a global, Scandinavian-based company that provides test-based, scientifically proven nutritional supplements and confidential dried blood spot tests.