Diabetes rising among Africa’s young adults
A group of software developers in Africa are developing mobile health apps among them application that will help monitor diabetic patients. Their interest in diabetes monitoring apps came after Doctors in Africa warned several years back that diabetes is on the rise among young people in the continent, attributable largely to sedentary urban lifestyles and increasingly high levels of obesity. An estimated 29 percent in urban areas and 14 percent in rural areas suffers from the disease, most of them young adults, while 36 percent are at high risk of getting it, according to a study conducted last year. That figure is up from estimates of 2.4 percent in 1989 and 0.6 percent in 1979. The study also showed that Kinshasa, Johannesburg, Nairobi, Lagos, Cairo and Dar Es Salaam had the highest prevalence of obesity in the continent, with 51 percent of the 1,000 men and women in the 22 -35 age range surveyed falling under that category. Doctors blame the high level of diabetes in the capital a