MYTH: DIABETES IS NOT PREVENTABLE. FACT: According to the World Health
Organization, healthy living is the key to fighting diseases. If we eat right, exercise, and avoid tobacco, we can prevent 80% of heart disease, 80% of type 2 diabetes, and 40% of cancers. Diabetes is not inevitable. In fact, it is preventable. Let us not forget that in this 100th year since the discovery of insulin.
AROGYA WORLD: CATALYZING
HEALTHY LIVING
Arogya World is a global health nonprofit organization working to prevent diabetes and other NCDs through health education. The nonprofit champions technology and has reached 5 million people to date, including school children, working adults, urban and rural women, and girls in India. Prevention through healthy living is at the core of all Arogya World’s work in India.
GET THE FACTS ABOUT DIABETES: MYTH: DIABETES IS NOT A SERIOUS DISEASE. FACT: Diabetes is a severe chronic
disease with no cure. With diabetes comes a host of complications, including heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, blindness, and foot amputation.
The current COVID wave in India is devastating and one of the worst humanitarian crises of our lifetimes. People with diabetes are at a greater risk for more negative health outcomes from COVID—they are more likely to be hospitalized and need ventilators.
62
WHY HEALTHY LIVING MATTERS Healthy living is the smart solution for NCDs like diabetes and heart disease. Healthy living is also the solution for boosting our immunity and keeping our bodies fit so we can better withstand the next pandemic. It is also vital for maintaining our mental health, increasingly recognized as one of the most serious fallouts from COVID.
The “tsunami” of diabetes demands major changes in society and international action. Nonprofits like Arogya World have been leading the way for diabetes prevention for the last 10 years. The organization’s mission is in its name; ‘Arogya,’ in Sanskrit, means ‘to live a life without disease.’ Learn more at arogyaworld.org TO DONATE AROGYAWORLD.ORG/DONATE Your support will help Arogya World make meaningful impact and highlight healthy living as the way forward post-COVID.
PHOTO COURTESY OF © AROGYA WORLD
Diabetes and other noncommunicable diseases, NCDs, threaten the health and the economic prosperity of nations, rich and poor. People with diabetes have high cardiovascular risk, are 25 times more likely to develop blindness, and 17 times more likely to develop kidney disease than people without diabetes. 77 million Indians live with diabetes, and that’s something we can’t live with.
