ANTALYA, Turkey 

More people in Turkey are being diagnosed with diabetes compared with previous years, an expert said Sunday.

Speaking to the media, Tugbay Tug, a professor at Ankara University’s Faculty of Medicine, Department of General Surgery, said the number of people in Turkey with diabetes now accounts for more than 10% of the population compared with 7% five years ago. 

Tug underlined that Turkey is the third highest country in Europe in terms of the number of diabetes patients.

About half of the patients with diabetes are losing their feet because of foot wounds, he said.

“The mortality rate of patients who have lost one organ is much higher than the mortality rate caused by most lethal cancers, and 50% die within three years,” he added.

Tug warned that diabetes should not be ignored.

“One out of 10 people in society are diabetes patients and the number of people with diabetes totals more than 8 million in Turkey,” he added.

He said 20% of Turkey’s population will have diabetes by 2025 if people don’t change their dietary habits.

“Scientific data shows that one in four diabetes patients suffer foot wounds. We can say that there are at least 2 million diabetic foot patients in Turkey. This number will increase if we don’t live healthy.”

*Writing by Davut Demircan