Excerpt
SUMMARY: In Mexico, over 70 percent of citizens are overweight or obese and 14 percent of Mexican adults now suffer from diabetes, though half of those affected aren't even aware they have the disease. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on the struggle to bring the disease under control.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO (NewsHour): The North American Free Trade Agreement brought Mexico chain restaurants, malls and big box stores with abundant shelves, and an epidemic of diabetes.
JAVIER LOZANO, Founder, Clinicas del Azucar: Regular food, but sugar free.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Javier Lozano, whose mother suffers from the disease, thinks he can make a difference. Three years ago, he opened a chain called Clinicas del Azucar, or the Sugar Clinics.
JAVIER LOZANO: Our dream was, imagine there’s a clinic in every corner. Just as we have franchise for hamburgers and pizza and fried chicken.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The clinics are a one-stop shop to see a doctor or nutritionist, get your eyes checked, or feet, then pick up a pair of shoes or snacks.
Lozano, a 33-year-old MIT graduate, hopes to have 200 outlets by 2020, but it’s a tiny fraction of the demand in a country that by then could have 20 million diabetics.
DR. SIMON BARQUERA, National Institute of Public Health: Basically, diabetes prevalence has been doubling every six to 10 years.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Dr. Simon Barquera of Mexico’s National Health Institute says it now affects 14 percent of Mexican adults, a population with widespread genetic predisposition to diabetes.
Adding to the risk, 72 percent are obese or overweight. Those numbers are now higher than Mexico’s northern neighbors, but with double the impact. Far fewer Mexicans have their symptoms under control.
DR. SIMON BARQUERA: For example, in Canada and the U.S., more than half of the population with diabetes has adequate control, in Mexico, only 25 percent.
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