Esso joins battle against diabetes

TOO MANY Barbadians are becoming couch potatoes as the island’s diabetes rate soars.
And officials have expressed fear that very little or no progress has been made in tackling the issue of obesity, a major factor in the disease.
Dr Carlisle Goddard, chief executive officer of the Barbados Diabetes Foundation, raised concern about a worrying trend where Barbadians affected by the disease were not attending the doctor out of fear that a limb might be removed.
Meanwhile, Minister of Health John Boyce said the state’s finances and the main hospital were feeling the effects as diabetes was now “the third [leading] cause of illness and death in the population”.