We must understand how traumatic diabetes can be

LOOK around at the people you know or work with. Almost any of them could be suffering from diabetes yet you would never know. There are no outward signs as there are with some other kinds of disability. Yet this disease – which has to be managed day in and day out – is a disability. And up to four million people now suffer from diabetes Type 1 or Type 2.

Thousands of people who have diabetes face discrimination and stress at work. Many suffer stoically in silence and rely on annual leave days to take time off for vital health checks.

These revelations come as a result of a survey carried out by Diabetes UK. Some of the 10,000 people who took part say they feel that employers and colleagues do not understand what an impact this disease has on those who have been diagnosed. There are cases of people with diabetes quitting their jobs because of the unbearable anxiety.

Few of us would be wilfully unkind to someone with diabetes but we could be thoughtless. This shocking survey really should ensure the start of a national conversation about this widespread condition and its effects.

But while we should show sympathy, kindness and understanding, it should also be remembered that having diabetes is no bar to success or achievement. Our own stoical Prime Minister manages Type 1 diabetes and has to inject herself four or five times a day. But as she says: “The crucial thing to me is being a diabetic doesn’t stop you from doing anything.”