The city Health Department sounded a new anti-obesity alarm yesterday, citing a record 5,695 city deaths in 2011 from diabetes-related diseases.
It was the fourth consecutive increase since 2007. In 2010, 5,537 deaths were tied to the disease.
Obesity is “at the heart of the epidemic,” said Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley, launching an eat-healthy ad campaign.
The disparities in death rates between wealthy and poor neighborhoods were striking.
There were 19 diabetes deaths per 100,000 in Manhattan’s Murray Hill, the city’s lowest, compared with 177 per 100,000 in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, the highest. Men have a lot more reason to worry than women — their chance of dying from the disease is 1.4 times higher.
“People are twice as likely to have diabetes if they’re obese,” he noted.