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CORDIS Express: Responding to the rise of obesity and diabetes

This edition of CORDIS Express takes a look at the growing problems of overweight, obesity and diabetes in Europe, and what researchers are doing to understand, prevent and treat them.

According to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), diabetes caused 4.9 million deaths worldwide in 2014, and, tragically, every seven seconds a person dies from the disease. The statistics for Europe (including Russia) are stark: 52 million people – more than in the regions of North America, Central and South America and Africa – are living with diabetes and the disease has a 7.9 % prevalence rate. The fact that type 2 diabetes is increasing in every country is undoubtedly linked to the rise in overweight and obesity. And it looks like we are on track for this trend to continue into the future – the results of a recent World Health Organisation (WHO) obesity forecast exercise suggest that unless immediate action is taken, the proportion of adults who are overweight or obese in Europe will rise by 2030. This means that Europeans will be living with an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes as well as a plethora of other health complications including cardiovascular diseases and musculoskeletal disorders such as osteoarthritis. However all is not lost. Dr Joao Breda, Programme Manager for Nutrition, Obesity and Physical Activity at the WHO Regional Office for Europe, insists that we can still avert this health crisis: ‘Action taken today can prevent these predictions from becoming reality and in some European countries the trend is already flattening off thanks to preventative measures including successes, for example, in the area of childhood obesity.’ EU-funded researchers are at the forefront of research supporting these successes by exploring the causes of overweight and obesity and the link to diabetes, as well as investigating innovative treatment and prevention measures. This edition of CORDIS Express takes a look at some of these endeavours. - BIOactive implantable CApsule for PANcreatic islets immunosuppression free therapy - The secret life of insulin-producing cells - Identification of the genes regulated by the SIRT1 Histone Deacetylase and their contribution in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes and obesity - Childhood diabetes or obesity: which comes first? - Trending science: Bacteria used to detect cancer and diabetes

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Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Croatia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, United Kingdom

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