Sydney Opera House turns blue for diabetes
On World Diabetes Day, 14th November, Abbott Diabetes Care in collaboration with the Juvenile Diabetes
Research Foundation, will turn the iconic Sydney Opera House blue, in a bid to focus attention on the need for better understanding and action on preventing, treating and curing the disease.
Turning the Opera House blue is part of a global awareness campaign organised by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF). Landmark buildings across the world including the Empire State Building, London Eye, and the Obelisque in Paris will turn blue in recognition of World Diabetes Day.
Speaking on World Diabetes Day, 14 November, Associate Professor Ruth Colagiuri, Director of the
Diabetes Unit at the University of Sydney’s Menzies Centre for Health Policy, said Australians need to make radical changes to the way we live, and manage our society, if we are to stand a chance of combating the diabetes pandemic.
"1.5 million Australians have diabetes, with 6,000 new cases diagnosed every month. There are fears diabetes will soon overtake smoking and alcohol as a leading cause of death and disability," Associate Professor Colagiuri said.
"Not only does diabetes and its debilitating complications come at great personal cost to individuals, the
increase in prevalence of this disease has placed an unsustainable burden on Australia’s health system, and causes significant economic productivity losses."
"Each year Australians are becoming more car dependent and more obese. As a society we need to change the way we live so it is safer to ride a bike to work, more affordable to join a gym and less expensive to buy fresh healthy food. We also need to change the way we work so people don’t spend endless hours sitting in front of a computer screen," Associate Professor Colagiuri said.
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