Australia's Aboriginal population faces a severe diabetes crisis, with roughly one in four of the country's 500,000 indigenous people suffering from adult-onset diabetes, a rate far higher than the national average.
Paul Zimmet, director of the International Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, warned that without prompt intervention, entire indigenous communities could collapse within the century. He noted that conventional Western health advice, centered on better diet and more exercise, may not be sufficient to address the problem.
Aborigines already die an average of 20 years younger than other Australians, and diabetes-related complications, including infections, amputations, and kidney disease, are a leading driver of that gap.
Health Minister Tony Abbott attributed the epidemic to a collision between calorie-dense food and largely sedentary routines, describing it as affecting indigenous Australians "perhaps more dramatically than any other people in the world."
Contributing factors include high unemployment, low physical activity, and concerns among some experts that increased government health spending has inadvertently enabled greater consumption of alcohol, fatty foods, and sugary drinks, worsening overall health outcomes.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in November 2006, in its own words.