WHICH IS WORSE? 'I'd rather have HIV than diabetes,' one controversial doctor says

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
4/21/2014 (3 years ago)
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

At one time, HIV and AIDS was considered a horrifying death sentence. There was no way to control it, and those who suffered from it would suffer, long painful deaths as their faculties fell away. Diabetes, on the other hand, was a given for those who hereditary propensities for the disease, and almost a given for the elderly and overweight. Today, with protease inhibitors for AISS, which makes it a manageable condition, which is worse .? Dr. Max Pemberton has since made a bold claim. "As a doctor I can tell you that, medically speaking, I'd rather have HIV than diabetes."

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - No one would willingly have either medical condition. Pemberton argues his point by writing in The Spectator, "While this might sound shocking or surprising, the facts speak for themselves: the prognosis for those with Type 2 diabetes is much worse than for those with HIV."

Pemberton say that it is now very rare for someone to die of HIV in the U.K. and that, in fact, people with the virus have a very similar life expectancy to people who are HIV-negative.

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Assuming patients take their medication, Pemberton says that HIV patients experience very few problems as a result of their condition.

In contrast, he says the situation is very different for people with Type 2 diabetes.

People with Type 2 diabetes are more than twice as likely to have a stroke as people without the disease, he says.
 
He says they are also four times more likely to have heart disease and that 20 to 30 percent of patient have kidney problems which can lead to the need for regular dialysis.

Diabetes can also lead to blindness, foot ulcers and amputations.

HIV today can be treated very successfully with highly active antiretroviral therapy, or HAART which prevents the development of the opportunistic infections that kill people with untreated HIV/AIDs.

While patients with Type 2 diabetes can also be easily treated with medication, this is not the case.

Diabetes is progressive, meaning people usually end up needing insulin injections and that they suffer serious consequences from having the disease.

"To put it starkly, the latest statistics show that because of HAART, HIV now no longer reduces your life expectancy, while having Type 2 diabetes typically reduces it by ten years."

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