Mexico City.- If effective actions are not implemented, Mexico will face a scenario in the coming years with 40 percent of people with diabetes and 50 percent with hypertension, in addition to 70 percent of the adult population being overweight and obese, warned Eduardo Lazcano, director of the National Institute of Public Health.
Presenting the results of the National Health and Nutrition Survey of Mexico (Ensanut) 2020-2023, he stressed that it is necessary to have an integrated, universal, free, quality and sustainable health system, which while contributing to fulfilling a commitment to social equity, allows to more effectively resolve the multiple care needs that exist among the population.
“It is the right time to delimit the disproportionate focus on specialized curative care and to integrate a single national health system aimed at achieving equity in access and equality of quality in the provision of services,” he said in the framework of the Second Public Health Meeting. Effective public health actions, he pointed out, contribute to improving the quality of life, and also favor the saving of hundreds of millions of pesos for the federal government.
The director of the INSP’s Population Health Research Center, Tonatiuh Barrientos, detailed the results of Ensanut in terms of chronic diseases.
In 2023, the prevalence of type 2 diabetes (T2D) in the Mexican adult population was 18.4 percent (12.4 diagnosed and 6 undiagnosed). 72.8 percent of people diagnosed with T2D went to a medical consultation at least once in the previous year, 92.8 percent had pharmacological treatment (regardless of going to a consultation), 77.9 percent used the treatment regularly, and 25.8 percent performed glycemic control. In the case of high blood pressure, Ensanut showed that 29 percent of the population aged 20 years and older had the condition in 2023. The proportion rose to 44.4 percent for the population aged 40 years and older. 52.1 percent of adults with hypertension did not take any non-pharmacological measures to control high blood pressure, 69 percent measured it at least once a month and 81.4 percent regularly took their medication. Meanwhile, according to the results of Ensanut, the prevalence of overweight and obesity in the adolescent population (12 to 19 years) rose from 34.9 percent in 2012 to 40.4 in 2023.
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