‘TommyTwo Dinners’ tells of triumph over diabetes Labour deputy leader reveals pledge to halt rise of disease
BLACK Country MP Tom Watson has revealed he suffered from diabetes.
But he beat the disease, which can lead to blindness, strokes and heart disease, thanks to a fitness programme which led to radical weight loss.
And the MP, Labour’s deputy leader, is to launch ambitious plans to halt the rise of diabetes if Labour wins power.
He said: “We are facing a public health crisis as the catastrophic levels of obesity and type 2 diabetes in the UK, and particularly the West Midlands, are too dangerous to ignore.”
Mr Watson was once nicknamed “Tommy Two-Dinners”. But his new slim-line look has amazed friends and Westminster colleagues.
It was a result of eradicating all refined sugar and ultra-processed food from his diet – and taking exercise.
Now he has revealed that being overweight led to type 2 diabetes. But thanks to his weight loss, he no longer requires medication for it.
Few people think of diabetes as a reversible disease, but Mr Watson said he wanted to use his experience to help people understand how it can be reversed as well as prevented.
And at a speech at the UK Active conference in London, Mr Watson will announce that Labour’s ambition is to halt the rise of diabetes within one Parliamentary term (four or five years) once the party is in government.
He said:
I want to use my own story to raise awareness about what changing your diet and getting active can do. Tom Watson
“I want to use my own story to raise awareness about what changing your diet and getting active can do.
“The thousands of local people suffering from and at risk of Type 2 diabetes need to know that it is a preventable and reversible disease.
“If we don’t find the answers quickly, the NHS will not cope with the projected increase in sugar-related, life-threatening diseases.”
Mr Watson, who is also Shadow Digital, Communities, Media And Sport Secretary, will lead a team including Labour Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth to look at the issue of obesity and diabetes.
He will also work with a new expert independent commission set up to consider how to get the public more active, whether the NHS should refer people to community groups such as sports clubs when appropriate, and whether rules on food advertising and labelling are tough enough.
It will also consider whether more regulation is needed to control what goes into our food, particularly how much sugar.
The rise of Type 2 diabetes in the UK is a public health crisis, he says.
In 1998 just three per cent of adults in England were diagnosed with diabetes but by 2016 that had more than doubled, with seven per cent of adults diagnosed.
And it’s a particular problem the West Midlands.
Seven out of ten people in the West Midlands are obese or overweight according to NHS figures. in
And 9.4 per cent of adults in the region, around 433,000 people, had diabetes in 2015 – whereas the national average was 6.6 per cent.
One possible consequence of diabetes is that a foot or toe needs to be amputated.
In the three years from April 2014 to April 2017, the NHS amputated 19,073 feet or toes.
Mr Watson will point the finger of responsibility at food companies who put hidden sugar in their products, contributing to the obesity crisis.
In a single 330 ml can of Coca Cola there is 35g of sugar. The daily recommended intake for adults is 30g of sugar a day, so drinking a single can would take you over the recommended limit.