When Jaybee Serrano had a sudden pain in his neck four years ago, he went straight to the emergency department at Blacktown Hospital.
Key points:
- Diabetes is the leading cause of heart attacks, strokes, heart failure and kidney disease
- Exercise and healthy eating reduce the risk of developing the disease
- Sydney’s western suburbs are home to the most residents with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
Doctors ran a routine test and found the 34-year-old’s blood sugar levels were alarmingly high.
“Diabetes is a silent killer,” Serrano said.
“Most of my relatives have diabetes and some have certainly died from complications with diabetes.”
Live in a disease hot spot.
Of the 219,000 people in Greater Sydney who have type 1 and type 2 diabetes, 65 per cent live in the city’s western suburbs, according to the latest census figures.
Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes can be hereditary conditions, but type 2 can also be influenced by a person’s lifestyle.
Doctors warn that diabetes is the leading cause of heart attacks, strokes, heart failure, kidney disease and preventable blindness, as well as dementia and some cancers.
Mr. Serrano’s neck pain was fleeting, but the revelation that he was pre-diabetic forced him to make difficult lifestyle decisions.
Working with her GP, she started cutting out foods like rice and bread and got more exercise by playing basketball.
Within three months her blood sugar levels improved, and she has continued to work to make sure they stay that way.
“I want to be healthy for myself and for my two children,” she said.
Dr Maberly says there could be more people with diabetes in western Sydney than reported. (ABC News: Tony Ibrahim)
Glen Maberly, a senior endocrinologist at Blacktown and Mount Druitt hospitals, is the director of Western Sydney Diabetes, an organization trying to co-ordinate a response to the widespread disease.
He said the actual number of people living with diabetes was likely higher than the census estimated.
“You can have diabetes and not know it,” she said.
“But suddenly the catastrophic will happen and you’ll end up with a heart attack in the hospital, and that’s not silence.
“Either, you’re going to end up with an amputation, or you’re going to end up on dialysis with a kidney replacement.”
He said there were three main reasons diabetes rates were higher in Sydney’s west: unhealthy food choices, less space for exercise and greater diversity with ethnicities susceptible to developing it.
In 2016, Western Sydney Diabetes partnered with Price Waterhouse Cooper to calculate the economic toll diabetes takes on the region, including state and federal government costs, out-of-pocket expenses, lost productivity and social costs.
They found that the economic impact for an average patient with type 2 diabetes is $16,124 per year.
All told, this means the high rate of diabetes in western Sydney costs $1.48 billion a year.
Dr. Maberly said the best way to prevent type 2 diabetes was to eat healthy foods and exercise.
“However, if we want to change diabetes, we need to see this as a bigger problem.”
Activities such as walking can leave Mr Ashley exhausted when his blood sugar levels are out of control. (ABC News: Isobel Roe)
After 20 years of living with type 2 diabetes, Russell Ashley still struggles to stick to a strict diet and exercise regimen.
If the 69-year-old from Blacktown doesn’t stay on top of his blood sugar levels, activities like walking and driving will leave him exhausted.
He has to go to the bathroom more often and his cuts take longer to heal.
“If I don’t take it [medication]then I don’t have control over my whole body,” he said.
“It can be debilitating, very debilitating.”
The Western Sydney Leadership Dialogue said better urban planning could also help the problem.
“The sad reality is that for many of these families and residents, they have better access to a KFC or a McDonalds than an actual park or park,” Adam Leto, director of the nonprofit organization. think tank, he said.