The country’s health system could grind to a halt in the
not-too-distant future due to a sharp increase in the number of
diabetics, thanks largely to the excessive consumption of sugar in the
country.
Addressing the African Food
Manufacturing and Safety Summit in Nairobi last month, Mr Bimal Shah,
the director of Broadways Bakery Ltd, said the looming crisis in the
healthcare system is attributable to poor food choices.
“More
than five per cent of 25-year-old Kenyans are developing diabetes, a
lifelong condition that causes kidney failure, loss of limbs, comas and a
range of debilitating and life-threatening complications triggered
profoundly by excessive sugar consumption,” he said, quoting a World
Health Organisation report on diabetes in Kenya.
According
to the WHO, Kenyans consume twice as much sugar as Tanzanians, and more
than all other Africans, with the exception South Africans and Swazis.
Kenyans consume 60gms of sugar per day, compared to Tanzanians’ typical
23gm, 5gm for Indians, and an average of just over 15gm a day for the
Chinese.http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/DN2/-/957860/3282088/-/riiphsz/-/index.html
