(Photo: Baz Ratner/Reuters)
By Eytan Halon - November 13, 2018
Diabetes and its devastating complications are a growing, global epidemic. A major public health problem, diabetes has the potential to take over the lives of sufferers and exact an increasingly heavy price for the world's healthcare systems.
Some 425 million adults worldwide are living with diabetes today, with the figure set to rise to 522 million by 2030 and 629 million by 2045, according to International Diabetes Federation (IDF) estimates. Today, an incredible 12% of all adult healthcare expenditure is diabetes-related.
World Diabetes Day, created by IDF and the World Health Organization in 1991, is marked every year on November 14, the birthday of Sir Frederick Banting – the celebrated Canadian scientist who co-discovered insulin in 1922 – and seeks to boost public and political awareness of diabetes issues.
While there is currently no cure for either Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, a range of breakthrough Israeli medical technologies is changing the rules of the game for diabetics.
Although diabetes is often associated with insulin injections, Jerusalem-based Oramed Pharmaceuticals has developed an innovative oral insulin capsule that transforms injectable treatments into oral therapies. The capsules, for both types of diabetes, are currently in advanced Food and Drug Administration clinical trials.
Read More: Jerusalem Post