Diabetes

As mentioned, Type 2 diabetes happens when our body is unable to make enough insulin, or the insulin you make isn’t as effective. 

Some factors increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes such as:

Obesity/ overweight  

• If you are white with a BMI over 30 you may be at risk of developing diabetes 
• If you are South Asian, Chinese Black Caribbean or Black Caribbean with a BMI over 27.5 you may be at risk of developing diabetes

 Age  

• If you are 40 or older  
• 25 years old and above for Black Caribbean and Black African, South Asian, Chinese

If someone in your family has type 2 diabetes  

• You are 6 times more likely to develop diabetes  

If you have high blood pressure  

Deprivation  

• Type 2 diabetes is 60% more common in communities living in the most deprived quintiles compared to communities living in the least deprived quintiles living in England  

Ethnicity  

• South Asian population in the UK are 6 times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than the white population  
• African and African-Caribbean populations are 3 times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than the white population  

Find out what you can do to reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes and know the signs and symptoms of diabetes to act early and turn type 2 diabetes around. 

For more advice and information on diabetes, please visit Diabetes UK or the NHS website.

You can lower your risk of developing type 2 diabetes by:

• Eating healthily
• Doing more exercise
• Losing weight if you are advised by a medical professional to do so

• Needing to go the toilet to wee more often, especially at night.
• Being really thirsty.
• Being more tired than usual.
• Losing weight without meaning to.
• Thrush
• Cuts taking longer to hear
• Blurry vision
• Being more hungry than normal.