Doctor's prescription for beating diabetes

[Northerner]

A tax on cheap fast food and encouraging more people to take exercise are needed to help reverse an increase in type two diabetes, according to a leading doctor.

Professor Azhar Farooqi, a GP in Highfields and co-chairman of Leicester City clinical commissioning group (CCG), believes the two measures would go some way to stop a surge in the condition.

Leicester has one of the highest rates of diabetes in the country.
More than 25,000 city residents are affected by the disease, costing the NHS about ?50 million a year.

http://www.thisisleicestershire.co....tory-19863586-detail/story.html#axzz2gMHdtkcX

 

[Pumper_Sue]

There is a tax on fast food, it's called VAT

 

[Northerner]

There is a tax on fast food, it's called VAT

I think these calls for taxes are a bit of a nonsense, cigarettes and alcohol are heavily taxed but there are still a large number of people willing to pay the price. Nothing has changed since I was a kid really, it's just that the popular 'fast food' back then was fish and chips. What they really need to address is the amount of carbs in processed foods and stop manufacturers from claiming a food is 'healthy' simply because it is low fat, and replacing fat with sugar.

 

[trophywench]

Well - it did strike me when I read about the diabetes hot-spots, that most of those areas that I know tend to have lots of Asians, quite a number of whom will be South Asians, as well as being demographically 'poor' areas mostly - and neither of those will help the statistics much, will they?