The latest special issue of Diabetes Voice focuses on type 1 diabetes. In tackling the world pandemic of diabetes, and the critical importance of making societal change to arrest the staggering rise in the prevalence of type 2 diabetes, it is easy for the needs of the 10% of people with diabetes who have type 1 diabetes to be forgotten.
While type 2 diabetes dominates in sheer numbers, type 1 diabetes remains a very special issue. With 70,000 newly diagnosed young people every year, the prevalence of type 1 diabetes is growing globally - not just in Northern Europe. Those affected have very special needs. The bottom line could not be more crude: unless they are diagnosed quickly and then receive insulin and skilled instruction on how to use it, people with type 1 diabetes die very quickly.