As the Guardian reports this morning:
One in five adults in the UK are now living with diabetes or pre-diabetes, according to “alarming” data that exposes the impact of soaring obesity levels, increasingly unhealthy diets and a “broken” food environment.
In total, 12.2 million people are affected, the data analysis from Diabetes UK shows, including 4.6 million with diagnosed diabetes, 1.3 million with undiagnosed diabetes, and 6.3 million with non-diabetic hyperglycaemia, also known as pre-diabetes. It is the highest total ever recorded.
The curse of highly addictive, sugar-laden food that is being created by the food industry in the UK to ensure that we crave products that maximise the profits of the companies producing them whilst massively harming our health is a scandal worse now than that of the promotion of smoking before measures to address that issue were introduced.
The vast majority of the 12 million people with type 2 diabetes, or pre-diabetes, need not have that condition. Changes to their diet would cure them of this condition within weeks in a great many cases. That is because type 2 diabetes is not an illness that is caught. It is an illness systemically imposed on people by an industry intent on creating addiction to its products. And it is not a chronic condition. It is almost always curable.
However, there are three obstacles to curing this problem. This would not only massively improve the quality of vast numbers of people's lives in this country but would also solve the entire capacity problem in the NHS and simultaneously massively reduce the cost of that service, ending the supposed crisis in government funding that we are supposed to be facing to the extent that austerity is required.
The first is the power of corporate lobbying by those creating this addiction. This lobbying is not only aimed at the government but also at us via advertising.
The second is the power of the big pharmaceutical sector, which wants the perpetuation of this situation so that it can sell massively profitable drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic. Curing diabetes is the last thing it wants.
Third, we have a supine government. As I noted recently, in November, the House of Lords produced an impressive report suggesting that the quality of food in the UK had to be transformed to tackle this issue. When doing so, they suggested that the food industry should not be involved in setting that new food policy precisely because they were the problem that had to be tackled and could not, therefore, dictate the solution. But, our government has rejected this advice, suggesting that the food industry is integral to food policy in this country, perpetuating the problem as a result.
We could adopt the Lords' recommendations. We could take the food industry and its harmful practices out of the process of creating food policy.
We could ban the advertising of addictive foodstuffs that do harm.
We could change the algorithms that manage GP practices and their rewards in the UK, which currently encourage the management but not curtailment of diabetes.
We could change the priorities of the NHS so that it seeks to eliminate diabetes and not manage it.
We could divert funding to people to ensure that they can afford genuinely nutritious food.
We could do all those things, but our government would rather we suffer so that big business might profit.
It's hard to avoid the conclusion that they are profoundly corrupt as well as utterly indifferent to the well-being of people in this country.
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No sooner do I send you a link to this story than you blog about it…………
OK you probably had seen it already
This might also be relevant
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/feb/06/urgent-action-needed-to-ensure-uk-food-security-report-warns
If I was to make a fairly obvious suggestion what about a sugar ‘quota’ for the UK, ie there is a maximum amount that can be sold in any one year, including synthetic sweeteners and reduce it year on year coupled perhaps with a sugar duty.
Possibly in the same way for other ingredients used to make ultra processed foods eg certain flavourings, emulsifiers etc?
The most obvious example of the problem is seen in petrol petrol stations where the queue toward the till is often arranged boustrophedonically (my new favourite word) in order to maximise exposure to the great wall of sugar. Literally 30 or so metres of invitations to indulge in sugar and chemicals with absolutely no nutritional value and no ability to avoid it.
Obesity-causing, diabetes-causing, foods (UPFs and other HFSS “edible products”aka ‘Junk’) should have been listed in the National Risk Register 2025 (NNR’25) (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6787ea8e1124a2c3ceb646bf/National_Risk_Register_2025.pdf), or be the new National Security Risk Assessment as a “serious chronic (long term) risk… not included in the NRR”, when it comes out!
Mind you, “civil nuclear accident” risk is listed as “catastrophic” (level 5) in the NNR’25, but that hasn’t stopped Sir Kier Starmer recommending more nuclear reactors (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/feb/06/keir-starmer-unveils-plan-for-large-nuclear-expansion-across-england-and-wales) Growth is clearly more important to this government than the risks to the public that have been identified and are obvious!
Speaking as an insulin-dependent diabetic (family history is involved), officially Type 2, because I still produce a little insulin, it isn’t always poor diet or obesity that causes this chronic condition.
I’m 6’2″ and 80kgs. If you put 10 newly diagnosed diabetics in a room, 8 would be overweight, 2 not. You are right to say that the 8 can likely do something diet-related to change their condition, but it’s much harder for the 20% like me. I eat well, and my blood glucose levels are 80%-90% where they should be so its well-managed.
I remain economically productive and, although I could perhaps exercise more, lead a useful life, I think!
I was careful to say most type 2 diabetes is curable
Most is important there
I am one of those at risk so this reverberates with me and I agree with your sentiments – sugar is really dangerous stuff – like all sources of potential energy.
Being active – walking about, cycling, rowing all help me keep its effects at bay and being disciplined as possible about sugar. Sweets are definitely out, alcohol consumed sparingly, soft drinks – out – it’s whats in the rest of your diet you have to be careful about. Even recipes for home cooking need to be watched.
The sugar lobby needs taking to task for sure.
I have been diabetic for more than 20 years. I have had no symptoms during that time; I only know I have diabetes vecause my blood-sugarreadings say it is so. Diabetes tests are now extremely cheap, so can be applied to anyone visiting a GP. When I was diagnosed, in 2000, the average blood sugar of the population was 5 of whatever units were being used at the time (it’s changed at least twice since then), Anyone with a blood sugar reading over 7 was diabetic. I used to ask “what’s the standard deviation from that average?” but no-one even knew what I was talking about. I do know it’s not a classic Bell curve.
Adult population of the UK is approx 48 million, starting at 16 and including pensioners. If the gap between 5 and 7 old units is 1 standard deviation, we could expect about 8 million people with a blood sugar reading over 7. That’s a bit more than actual cases, ignoring “pre-diabetes” since I don’t know how it’s defined.
I think there’s enough here to be at least dubious of the figures quoted above. Note; I am not saying that all is well with a diet of ultra-processed food, or a very-high-sugar diet. I think it’s a very broken system. It bears hardest on the poor because of the poverty issue, which means these cheap industrial foods are their only option. But deciding on the right course of action depends on the correct diagnosis of the problem, and I’m not convinced that the diabetic answer is the right one.
Thanks
It is relevant here to look at the work of Kathleen Desmaisons and her book Potatoes not Prozac.
She considers sugar to be addictive and teaches how to deal with addiction to sugar. https://radiantrecovery.com/
It is not easy.
Not least because of how prevalent it is in our food and the effect it has on our hormones.
According to the Epic Oxford study vegans have a much lower risk of type 2 diabetes. It isn’t just sugar that is an issue.
We know that many resort to sugary foods for comfort – it’s an inexpensive (in the short term) option. In losing 2 stone last year I’ve used meal replacement shakes, protein bars and so on. I’m spending noticeably more on food to have more balanced nutrition, and not everyone can afford that. With the increasing potential to get Glp1 agonists if you can afford it, we can expect to see the existing disparity in health outcomes between rich and poor widen further.
I do think those medications have a place because we evolved in relative scarcity and they do help many, but I also think it’s the kind of area where we should fund public research to identify and approve a tablet-based Glp1 agonist that’s then cheap and accessible.
Advertising restrictions may help but we have a situation where you can pick between a balanced snack bar and a sugar-laden one, but the later will generally be half the price of the healthier option.
To some extent I’d be in favour of funding soup kitchens – whether from government spending or charitable efforts. Set up with a goodwill payment system (encouraged to make a donation towards costs, but not required), it would be about providing warming, healthy sustenance on demand, not just to homeless people (creating stigma and objections about funding the work-shy), but for anyone who wants a ‘pay what you want’ meal. It may have associations with historic poverty, but it’s genuinely asking the question – what is the cost and what is the return of offering affordable nutrition to all?
After I lost weight I realised that carrying an 80L backpack I had about the same total weight as before the diet, and that reminded me how much harder stairs and standing for even moderate periods had been.
I do wonder if doing something to represent the reverse might help some understand the benefits – e.g. a rig that takes a proportion of your weight via a harness, and then get someone to walk around, walk up a few stairs, etc, and see how that difference in weight affects your joints. If I’d known how much difference losing the weight would make I may well have done it 10 years ago, but I didn’t understand the impact.
Beyond preventative healthcare, maybe we should also give some additional thought to educational healthcare – helping people to understand not just how they can help themselves but what it can achieve.
There’s also this from the Guardian today:
“McDonald’s has thwarted attempts to stop it opening new outlets by stressing that it sells salad, promotes “healthier lifestyles” and sponsors local children’s football teams.
Public health experts claim the fast-food firm uses a “playbook” of questionable arguments and tough tactics to force local councils in England to approve applications to open branches.
The disclosures, in an investigation published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ), set out how McDonald’s gets its way, especially when it appeals against councils’ decisions to block new openings.
Since 2020 it has lodged 14 such appeals with the Planning Inspectorate. So far it has won 11 of them and lost only one, and there are two others ongoing, the BMJ reported.”
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/05/mcdonalds-accused-of-tough-tactics-councils-new-branches
I seems to me that people reject any kind of intervention in the ways they behave but demand that government sort the problem for them.
We see so many hyperobese people on our street who are putting their lives at risk .Worse immediate members of my family are over the safety limit of BMI i.e over 2.9.
My Cambridge educated B.inlaw died recently. He was seriously overweight for 10 years + caused by troughing and this caused type 2 ( 30% chance) then dementia. Sad end but avoidable with self discipline
It does strike me as remarkable that the opportunities eat are absolutely everwhere
This post illuminates another facet of our current reality where, far from being governed for our own prosperity; we are being harvested for the benefit of corporations.