Health – Freiburg im Breisgau – Freiburg’s Lord Mayor Horn suffers from diabetes – Health

Freiburg (AP) – The Mayor of Freiburg, Martin Horn (independent), has diabetes and is now open to it. He had decided to make his diagnosis public as a “encouraging sign against stigmatization,” said the 34-year-old to the German press agency and the “Badische Zeitung” shortly before World Diabetes Day on Saturday. Previously, only those close to him knew about the disease. He now experiences the step into public as a liberation.

He was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in July, said Horn. Since then, he has changed his diet and has to take two to four insulin injections a day. After the first shock, he is now practicing acceptance and becoming more and more routine.

In type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease, the pancreas is unable to produce its own insulin. In type 2 diabetes, the much more common form of disease, the effectiveness of insulin on the body’s cells decreases over the years. Many patients also have low insulin production. In type 2, age (“adult diabetes”) and lifestyle play a role in addition to hereditary predispositions. Obesity is considered to be the most important risk factor.

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