I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman’s very important point. I was struck by that item on the news first thing this morning. It is coincidental that it was announced today and I will refer to it in my concluding remarks.
For type 1 diabetes, research priorities include reducing hypoglycaemic episodes, exploring the effectiveness of different insulins and technologies, and research into the artificial pancreas, which monitors blood sugar levels and automatically injects the right amount of insulin.
For type 2 diabetes, people want to know whether their diabetes can be cured, for example through surgery or very low calorie diets. Encouraging work is being done on low calorie diets, and a trial funded by Diabetes UK—the diabetes remission clinical trial—showed that almost half of type 2 diabetics who took part were in remission after 12 months.
We need to help people to reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and that means tackling the reasons for the increasing rates of obesity, particularly childhood obesity. The PREVIEW project—prevention of diabetes through lifestyle, intervention and population studies in Europe and around the world—showed that a weight loss of 10% of baseline weight can decrease insulin resistance, which is a causative factor in diabetes, and this is expected to reduce by 85% the three-year risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
In conclusion, I have two requests for the Minister. The first is that we build on progress being made through the NHS diabetes programme and commit to sustained transformation funding at current levels of £44 million a year until at least 2021. The NHS diabetes programme sets out to improve the treatment and care for people with diabetes. Investing now will allow us to reap substantial financial and social benefits in the future.
My second request is that we strengthen the childhood obesity plan, including measures on labelling and junk food marketing. Just this morning, Cancer Research UK called for the same action. I am sure that the Minister will appreciate that taking steps to tackle childhood obesity will improve the health of the nation and have an impact on all obesity-related illnesses, not just diabetes. We want mandatory traffic-light labelling on all processed foods and mandatory calorie labelling in the out-of-home sector. We also want a commitment to introduce a ban on the marketing of junk food on TV before the 9 pm watershed.
The childhood obesity plan is key in helping us realise a world where fewer people live with diabetes and where it is easier to live a life with a low risk of developing type 2 diabetes. However, as we heard on the news just this morning, the millennial generation are predicted to be the most obese yet, and it is vital that the Government act now to avoid a diabetes health crisis in the future.
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