Iran health official warns diabetes now emerging at age 20
Diabetes is appearing at far younger ages than before, Iran’s deputy health minister said on Thursday, estimating that about 7.5 million people nationwide now live with the disease.
Diabetes is appearing at far younger ages than before, Iran’s deputy health minister said on Thursday, estimating that about 7.5 million people nationwide now live with the disease.
Alireza Raisi told a diabetes symposium that cases have quadrupled in 35 years. “Relying only on drugs and hospital-based treatments will not bring lasting results,” he said.
About 600 million people worldwide are diabetic and that forecasts place the figure above 850 million by 2050, with the sharpest increases expected in Africa and the Middle East, Raisi mentioned.
He warned that lifestyle factors – limited physical activity, poor diet, obesity, air pollution and chronic stress – continue to drive growth in type-2 diabetes. “If we want effective control, we must shift to prevention,” he added.
Younger patients and heavy medical costs
Type-2 diabetes once mostly found in people over 40, is now being identified at about age 20 and in some cases younger, the deputy minister said. “This is a serious warning for the country’s future health.”
He linked diabetes to soaring treatment costs including dialysis, bypass surgery and vascular stents. “If you ask patients in a dialysis ward about the cause of their illness, more than 90 percent have diabetes or chronic hypertension,” he noted.
Only half of Iran’s estimated diabetic population, according to Raisi, is registered in the national health system, while WHO expectations for the next five years call for identifying and controlling 80 percent of patients and ensuring full access to insulin and self-monitoring tools for those with type-1 diabetes.
Poor diet, obesity, and low physical activity are driving a “growing national health burden,” Head of Iran’s Endocrine and Metabolism Research Institute, Bagher Larijani, said on Monday.
Diabetes and its complications consume up to 15% of Iran’s healthcare spending and shorten healthy life expectancy by about 300,000 years annually, he added.
Nine million Iranians, Larijani said, have pre-diabetes and that only a quarter of treated patients maintain proper glucose control.
Average monthly incomes now stand near $200, leaving millions unable to keep pace with food inflation. Many respondents said basic protein disappeared from their tables months ago.
“Our daily cost for five people is about 30,000,000 rials (around $27), not even counting meat, oil or rice,” one respondent said. “Our table has not just shrunk, it has been wiped out,” the message said.
Another described a timeline of disappearing foods: meat long ago, dairy a year ago, chicken six months ago, fruit four months ago. “It costs 1,000,000 rials (about $0.90) every time we buy bread. There is not much distance left until absolute hunger,” the person said.
One self-described employee earning 220,000,000 rials (around $195) a month and renting on a city’s outskirts said survival required queuing for subsidized poultry. “We removed meat from our diet at Nowruz because we were coming up short,” the message said.
Several said long-considered staples – Iranian rice, fish, nuts, fresh fruit and legumes – had become aspirations. “We eat only bread, yogurt and rice from morning to night,” another message said.
Health concerns mounting
In mid-October, domestic outlets reported that roughly 35 percent of recorded deaths were linked to undernutrition. Health ministry estimates say at least 10,000 people die each year from shortages of omega-3 fatty acids, another 10,000 from low fruit and vegetable intake, and about 25,000 from insufficient whole grains.
Shortages extend beyond food. “People are cutting doctor visits and medicine before anything else,” another respondent wrote. “We live on luck alone.”
One family of four said six months had passed since they last bought meat. “Life has become hard. My 16-year-old son left school to work, yet we still cannot cover daily needs,” the message said.
Another wrote that the essentials most families consider the heart of a meal – red meat, chicken and fish – were now out of reach. “If this government continues, the rest will disappear too, whether we like it or not,” the person said.
Many described a shift to cheaper staples. “Everything has been removed from my basket: fruit, dairy, meat, legumes. The only things I can still manage, with difficulty, are Indian rice, eggs and potatoes,” one message said.
Middle-class erosion
Several respondents who once identified with the middle class said they were now buying fruit with difficulty. “We take four apples, some pears, persimmons, cucumbers and oranges – it reaches 20,000,000 rials (around $18). One kilo of meat is 15,000,000 rials (about $13),” a message said, calling the situation “frightening and broken.”
Travel – once a marker of modest stability – has vanished. “Red meat, chicken, fish, clothes and gold have become dreams. Travel is zero,” one person said.
Amid the accounts of vanished foods, one message pressed for solutions rather than surveys. “We need a way out, not a question whose answer we all already know,” the person said.
Independent labor and pensioner groups warned in a joint 21 October statement that worsening living conditions and unanswered demands were pushing more workers, teachers and retirees toward street-level protest. They wrote that daily demonstrations reflected a determination to “win rights and express grievances” despite the economic strain.
The broad concern running through the messages is not only what families can no longer buy, but how long they can endure a decline that has turned routine meals into calculations of survival.