City where one in 10 people are fighting disease
BRADFORD is the diabetes capital of the UK.
One in ten people who live in the West Yorkshire city has diabetes compared to the national average of 6.6 per cent.
In the affluent West London borough of Richmond, just 3.6 per cent of residents have the disease.
Professor Naveed Sattar, an expert in metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, said Bradford’s social and ethnic make-up were behind the unwanted title. ‘There is now a clear appreciation that Type 2 diabetes is heavily socially class linked: affluent areas have very low diabetes and poorer areas have very high diabetes,’ he said.
‘In addition, there is a clear understanding it’s strongly ethnically linked with particularly Pakistanis having a high risk, more so than Indians and slightly more than Bangladeshis.
‘Because Bradford has a huge percentage of Pakistanis, its risks are much higher.’
South Asians are believed to have genes which give them a greater risk of diabetes. They have seen a rapid change in physical activity levels and diet in recent years as the population has become more affluent and adopted a Westernised lifestyle.
Separate figures show that around 70 per cent of adults in Bradford are overweight or obese, increasing the risk of suffering the condition.
Latest data from the national child measurement programme also found almost four in ten children are overweight or obese when they leave primary school. This compares to just over a quarter of children the same age in Richmond-upon-Thames.
Another report by Public Health England showed that a quarter of children in the most deprived areas in Bradford were overweight, double that of those in more affluent parts.
It also found that the disease was more prevalent among children from ethnic minority backgrounds.
Professor Sattar said: ‘Obesity is particularly common in younger people in poorer areas so, sure as night follows day, diabetes follows obesity.
‘It’s agreed that obesity is now much starker across social class because of overconsumption of calories being much more prevalent in poorer areas.’
A Bradford Council spokesman acknowledged the high levels of diabetes. He said tackling obesity and promoting healthy lifestyles were priorities.