Letter to Mahlamba Ndlopfu: Diabetes is on the march, ushering in death like a thief in the night
Ah, Chief Dwasaho. I had hoped, perhaps naïvely, that a ceasefire to end the Israel-American war on Iran might lift my spirits, but it seems I remain a child of a lesser God. While the world held its breath following Iran's reciprocal attack on the American military base in Qatar, I found myself wrestling anew with my own silent killer, type 2 diabetes — one I had thought was buried for good beneath tablets and self-injections.
Before the Israel-US-Iran skirmishes, I had already made a poor judgement call. I accepted Novo Nordisk's courtesy to attend the 85th American Diabetes Association (ADA) Congress, which concluded this past Monday in Chicago, US. I should have known better.
The word 'diabetes' still sends a shiver down my spine. Twelve years of sweat, blood and tears have passed since I first heard that diagnosis. The years have blurred into struggle, yet hope persists, fragile as the fleeting peace we celebrate in far-off lands, uncertain how long it will last.
I am lying, my leader; I was hoping that the science boffins at the ADA would announce a breakthrough for a cure that will improve my blood glucose without my having to lift a finger. I have tried better diets and newer drug regimens, and now I find myself among the ranks of those who rely on injectables. The nightmare worsens with each fasting glucose test.
Let the facts speak. Our local figures show that non-communicable diseases, including diabetes, are now a leading cause of death and disability in the country, and their burden is growing at an unprecedented rate.
According to the Department of Health's 2023/24 Annual Report, non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, chronic lower respiratory diseases, and mental health disorders have increased by 58.7% between 2002 and 2022.
Sadly, diabetes has now overtaken tuberculosis (TB) as the leading cause of death among non-communicable diseases. At a 2024 World Diabetes Day event, Dr Zaheer Bayat from Helen Joseph Hospital raised the alarm. Bayat said South Africa's growing obesity epidemic was fuelling type 2 diabetes, now increasingly diagnosed in children and young adults. There were at least 5.6 million people with diabetes in South Africa in 2019, according to advisory firm Percept. That number was projected to rise to 5.7 million by 2025 and to 7.2 million by 2030.
Stubborn digits
The numbers, those stubborn digits that know neither spin doctor nor party whip, do not lie. We are bleeding silently, internally and nationally. The sugar monster, better known by its formal name, diabetes mellitus, is no longer content with its rank as a lifestyle disease. It has launched a full-blown missile attack on our health system and our households. It is now a national emergency, stalking us in rural clinics and urban e-hailing taxis alike.
Once upon a time, we held nightly vigils for HIV and tuberculosis. Now, as the clocks of modernity tick on, diabetes tightens its grip, especially in our rural hamlets where the old enemies once reigned supreme. In these forgotten corners of the republic, a new horror dawns: poorly managed diabetes now trumps HIV and TB in its cruelty, ushering in death like a thief in a night clinic.
I know this not from theory, my leader, but from the red soil of my own family. My beloved mother, MaMlambo, who had a warm embrace and an iron will, lost her fight against Covid-19. But it was diabetes that signed her death certificate.
A year later, my middle brother followed. He lived in Ulundi, a place where health services are as scarce as ANC renewal. Fifty years young, armed only with faith and insulin, he too succumbed to the silent killer. His children were double orphaned, their mother long claimed by the pandemic of HIV/Aids and poverty — a lethal cocktail.
I fear the very word, my leader, diabetes. I do not whisper it; I wince. For me, the battlefield is not some sterile clinic with motivational posters and lukewarm nurses. It is the blood test queue, the quarterly HbA1c verdict, and the trembling hand reaching for a glucometer. That number, calculated over 90 bitter days, is both my confessor and executioner. It tells me what the doctors won't: that I am losing ground.
Once, I held the line. My glucose levels were stable. I marched to the beat of clean eating and regular medical check-ups. Then came Covid-19 twice. Each wave carved a little more of me away. The sugars spiked. Early this year, pneumonia arrived like an uninvited third cousin. The steroid treatment, my lifesaver, became the sugar saboteur. And so, I joined the ranks of the injectables.
But let us not pretend the enemy arrived with the pandemic. No, diabetes had long danced in my bloodstream, chuckling as I downed beers in smoky taverns. What I called me-time was, in fact, a slow suicide. I drove while low on sugar, thinking I was only tipsy. I crashed into a gate in Sunnyside, barely avoiding the wrath of a mob thanks to a security guard who knew the signs. He had seen this sugar demon before, in his own brother's eyes.
Years before that, I blacked out at the wheel and took out an electricity pole. Darkness descended on the neighbourhood, but it was the light of truth that hit me hardest: I had to stop drinking and driving. Four years clean now, 12 months without a car, but still I fight for control of this body.
Medical A-team
This is despite having a medical A-team, including a GP, endocrinologist, dietician, and private medical aid; I remain a man under siege. Diabetes is a cunning general. You never win. You negotiate, you stall, you beg. It requires 'unconditional surrender' to its management routine.
My leader, this is not a lifestyle issue. This is war. Thus, we must do more than count corpses and preach wellness from podiums. We must fight for newer medicine that lasts the month, clinics that open on weekends, and nurses who do not yawn through their shifts.
We need political will, not wellness seminars. Unfortunately, the war is here. It is in my blood. It is scorching our land.
Let me tell you, my leader, there is hope, though. The science community is united in fighting diabetes and its twin evil, obesity. This week at the ADA Congress, Novo Nordisk, the Danish healthcare giant, released fresh results from the Step-Up trial in Chicago.
The trial, led by Novo Nordisk and international researchers, tested a higher dose of semaglutide — the active ingredient in the weight loss drugs Wegovy and the type 2 diabetes injectable Ozempic — on people living with obesity but without diabetes.
The results show that this 7.2 milligramme dose delivered an average weight loss of 21% over 72 weeks, with a third of participants shedding at least 25% of their body weight. The safety profile remained consistent with that of previous semaglutide trials, with most side-effects being mild to moderate gastrointestinal issues that resolved over time. The Danish firm now plans to file for a label update in the European Union and other markets where Wegovy is approved.
I have asked: When is South Africa's turn? Soon. I am told.
Why is the scientific community so fixated on obesity, you ask? The answer lies in the complex relationship between health and suffering that links obesity to diabetes. Scientists aren't merely chasing accolades or enriching their pockets through suffering; they are pursuing the root cause of the diabetes epidemic.
The link between obesity and this deadly disease is the scientific gospel. The results released this week serve as a stark reminder that, in the battle against diabetes, the war must be fought first on the battlefield of obesity. Novo Nordisk is not just selling a drug; it is offering hope, a lifeline to those drowning in the flood of excess weight and its deadly consequence, uncontrolled diabetes, like me.
Instead of hosting dialogues and unveiling the Eminent Persons Group, we should focus on reforming the healthcare system and working closely with scientists to fast-track the introduction of new, life-saving drugs into our public health system.
If not for me, please do it for MaMlambo, a faith healer who gave of herself to save humanity and 5.6 million people facing death daily.
Till next week, my man — send me to a clinical trial near me. DM
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Daily Maverick
a day ago
- Daily Maverick
Letter to Mahlamba Ndlopfu: Diabetes is on the march, ushering in death like a thief in the night
Ah, Chief Dwasaho. I had hoped, perhaps naïvely, that a ceasefire to end the Israel-American war on Iran might lift my spirits, but it seems I remain a child of a lesser God. While the world held its breath following Iran's reciprocal attack on the American military base in Qatar, I found myself wrestling anew with my own silent killer, type 2 diabetes — one I had thought was buried for good beneath tablets and self-injections. Before the Israel-US-Iran skirmishes, I had already made a poor judgement call. I accepted Novo Nordisk's courtesy to attend the 85th American Diabetes Association (ADA) Congress, which concluded this past Monday in Chicago, US. I should have known better. The word 'diabetes' still sends a shiver down my spine. Twelve years of sweat, blood and tears have passed since I first heard that diagnosis. The years have blurred into struggle, yet hope persists, fragile as the fleeting peace we celebrate in far-off lands, uncertain how long it will last. I am lying, my leader; I was hoping that the science boffins at the ADA would announce a breakthrough for a cure that will improve my blood glucose without my having to lift a finger. I have tried better diets and newer drug regimens, and now I find myself among the ranks of those who rely on injectables. The nightmare worsens with each fasting glucose test. Let the facts speak. Our local figures show that non-communicable diseases, including diabetes, are now a leading cause of death and disability in the country, and their burden is growing at an unprecedented rate. According to the Department of Health's 2023/24 Annual Report, non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, chronic lower respiratory diseases, and mental health disorders have increased by 58.7% between 2002 and 2022. Sadly, diabetes has now overtaken tuberculosis (TB) as the leading cause of death among non-communicable diseases. At a 2024 World Diabetes Day event, Dr Zaheer Bayat from Helen Joseph Hospital raised the alarm. Bayat said South Africa's growing obesity epidemic was fuelling type 2 diabetes, now increasingly diagnosed in children and young adults. There were at least 5.6 million people with diabetes in South Africa in 2019, according to advisory firm Percept. That number was projected to rise to 5.7 million by 2025 and to 7.2 million by 2030. Stubborn digits The numbers, those stubborn digits that know neither spin doctor nor party whip, do not lie. We are bleeding silently, internally and nationally. The sugar monster, better known by its formal name, diabetes mellitus, is no longer content with its rank as a lifestyle disease. It has launched a full-blown missile attack on our health system and our households. It is now a national emergency, stalking us in rural clinics and urban e-hailing taxis alike. Once upon a time, we held nightly vigils for HIV and tuberculosis. Now, as the clocks of modernity tick on, diabetes tightens its grip, especially in our rural hamlets where the old enemies once reigned supreme. In these forgotten corners of the republic, a new horror dawns: poorly managed diabetes now trumps HIV and TB in its cruelty, ushering in death like a thief in a night clinic. I know this not from theory, my leader, but from the red soil of my own family. My beloved mother, MaMlambo, who had a warm embrace and an iron will, lost her fight against Covid-19. But it was diabetes that signed her death certificate. A year later, my middle brother followed. He lived in Ulundi, a place where health services are as scarce as ANC renewal. Fifty years young, armed only with faith and insulin, he too succumbed to the silent killer. His children were double orphaned, their mother long claimed by the pandemic of HIV/Aids and poverty — a lethal cocktail. I fear the very word, my leader, diabetes. I do not whisper it; I wince. For me, the battlefield is not some sterile clinic with motivational posters and lukewarm nurses. It is the blood test queue, the quarterly HbA1c verdict, and the trembling hand reaching for a glucometer. That number, calculated over 90 bitter days, is both my confessor and executioner. It tells me what the doctors won't: that I am losing ground. Once, I held the line. My glucose levels were stable. I marched to the beat of clean eating and regular medical check-ups. Then came Covid-19 twice. Each wave carved a little more of me away. The sugars spiked. Early this year, pneumonia arrived like an uninvited third cousin. The steroid treatment, my lifesaver, became the sugar saboteur. And so, I joined the ranks of the injectables. But let us not pretend the enemy arrived with the pandemic. No, diabetes had long danced in my bloodstream, chuckling as I downed beers in smoky taverns. What I called me-time was, in fact, a slow suicide. I drove while low on sugar, thinking I was only tipsy. I crashed into a gate in Sunnyside, barely avoiding the wrath of a mob thanks to a security guard who knew the signs. He had seen this sugar demon before, in his own brother's eyes. Years before that, I blacked out at the wheel and took out an electricity pole. Darkness descended on the neighbourhood, but it was the light of truth that hit me hardest: I had to stop drinking and driving. Four years clean now, 12 months without a car, but still I fight for control of this body. Medical A-team This is despite having a medical A-team, including a GP, endocrinologist, dietician, and private medical aid; I remain a man under siege. Diabetes is a cunning general. You never win. You negotiate, you stall, you beg. It requires 'unconditional surrender' to its management routine. My leader, this is not a lifestyle issue. This is war. Thus, we must do more than count corpses and preach wellness from podiums. We must fight for newer medicine that lasts the month, clinics that open on weekends, and nurses who do not yawn through their shifts. We need political will, not wellness seminars. Unfortunately, the war is here. It is in my blood. It is scorching our land. Let me tell you, my leader, there is hope, though. The science community is united in fighting diabetes and its twin evil, obesity. This week at the ADA Congress, Novo Nordisk, the Danish healthcare giant, released fresh results from the Step-Up trial in Chicago. The trial, led by Novo Nordisk and international researchers, tested a higher dose of semaglutide — the active ingredient in the weight loss drugs Wegovy and the type 2 diabetes injectable Ozempic — on people living with obesity but without diabetes. The results show that this 7.2 milligramme dose delivered an average weight loss of 21% over 72 weeks, with a third of participants shedding at least 25% of their body weight. The safety profile remained consistent with that of previous semaglutide trials, with most side-effects being mild to moderate gastrointestinal issues that resolved over time. The Danish firm now plans to file for a label update in the European Union and other markets where Wegovy is approved. I have asked: When is South Africa's turn? Soon. I am told. Why is the scientific community so fixated on obesity, you ask? The answer lies in the complex relationship between health and suffering that links obesity to diabetes. Scientists aren't merely chasing accolades or enriching their pockets through suffering; they are pursuing the root cause of the diabetes epidemic. The link between obesity and this deadly disease is the scientific gospel. The results released this week serve as a stark reminder that, in the battle against diabetes, the war must be fought first on the battlefield of obesity. Novo Nordisk is not just selling a drug; it is offering hope, a lifeline to those drowning in the flood of excess weight and its deadly consequence, uncontrolled diabetes, like me. Instead of hosting dialogues and unveiling the Eminent Persons Group, we should focus on reforming the healthcare system and working closely with scientists to fast-track the introduction of new, life-saving drugs into our public health system. If not for me, please do it for MaMlambo, a faith healer who gave of herself to save humanity and 5.6 million people facing death daily. Till next week, my man — send me to a clinical trial near me. DM
Daily Maverick
2 days ago
- Daily Maverick
Death in Mozambique after US funding cuts — a health system crumbles
After the abrupt termination of American aid, the health system in central Mozambique descended into chaos. In part one of this special series, Spotlight and GroundUp explained how children with HIV had been abandoned by US-funded case workers. Now in part two, we describe how the funding cuts affected hospitals, where key staff were dismissed and deliveries of new medicines were halted. In the ensuing turmoil, children died. On the hilly outskirts of Manica town in central Mozambique, Costancia Maherepa sits on a reed mat beside her mudbrick home and weeps over the death of her 11-year-old daughter, Paciencia. For years, their family depended on the support of a US-funded organisation called ANDA (the National Association for Self-Sustained Development). It employed a network of case workers and health staff to care for vulnerable children living with HIV. Paciencia had been one of them. 'When the programme was running, all the kids in this area were healthy and taking their medication,' says Costancia. But now, everything has changed. The American aid that once financed ANDA's work is gone and Costancia's family has suffered the consequences. Paciencia had a difficult life. Her father died six years ago, and Costancia struggled to grow enough food to keep her well fed. Around 2021, a case worker employed by ANDA saw that Paciencia was malnourished and took her for an HIV test. It came back positive. But despite this, Costancia says her daughter was calm and resourceful. When Costancia was out farming, it was Paciencia who acted as household head, cleaning and cooking for her younger sister, aged nine. When facing hunger, it was Paciencia who came up with a way to find food for the family, often by reaching out to neighbours. And with the help of the case worker from ANDA, Paciencia started antiretroviral (ARV) treatment and began to recover. She put on weight and even improved her marks at school. At the beginning of this year she was getting ready to start Grade 6. But at the same time, an election was taking place thousands of kilometres away from Pacienca's mud hut in Manica. A new US president was sworn in, and a slew of executive orders were issued. Shortly after, the institutions that had kept Paciencia alive would crumble. Children given the 'wrong medicines' Mozambique is an overwhelmingly aid-dependent country. Its ARV medication is procured by the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an international organisation. Until a few months ago, the distribution of these drugs to Mozambique's hospitals was heavily financed by US aid agencies, as was the transport of blood samples and specimens to the country's labs. US-funded organisations also employed much of the workforce at government health facilities, as well as the case workers who operate within communities. When US President Donald Trump decided in January to suspend the US government's global aid programmes, the health system in central Mozambique was upended. Most of ANDA's staff lost their jobs, including Ivone Mupacocha, the case worker who had been helping Paciencia. But Mupacocha continued occasionally checking up on the children she once supported. When she reached Pacienca's home some time after the funding cuts began, she found that the child had fallen ill. The cause was clear, according to Mupacocha. When the 11-year-old went to the health facility, she had been administered the wrong ARVs, and her body was reacting badly. Others in the town of Manica told me similar stories. HIV patients arrived at health facilities following the US funding cuts to find that everything had changed. Many of the health workers they knew were gone, and the queues stretched endlessly. After hours of waiting, they were handed drugs that differed from their usual prescription or were given much smaller doses of their medication than usual. For instance, elsewhere in the town, another mother told me that her HIV-positive child was given a different regimen of medication after the funding cuts, and the new drugs made him feel ill. The technical director of ANDA, Prince Mulondo, says that because US money funded the transport of drugs to health facilities, many hospitals in the region faced medicine stockouts following the aid suspension. Among the drugs that ran out were some ARVs. So health workers used alternatives that they still had in stock or simply began rationing people's medication. In other cases, it appears that hospital staff simply didn't know what drugs patients had been on. The data capturers that managed patient files were overwhelmingly US-funded and many were now gone, as were facilitators who acted as the first point of contact for vulnerable children like Paciencia. Within a month after she was put on a different treatment regimen, Paciencia grew increasingly ill. On 10 March she was admitted to hospital, where she stayed for more than three weeks. On 3 April, the 11-year-old, who had successfully jumped over so many hurdles in her short life, died in hospital. She was not the only one. HIV patients forced to ration medicines A few kilometres from Costancia's mud hut is the neighbourhood of Pesanhota Bairro, where a steep dirt road snakes past earthen homes, occasionally fortified by bits of corrugated iron. There, a former ANDA case worker, Cecilia Cláudio, sits on a plastic chair and ruminates about a family she once supported. The family included a single mother and two children, aged five and seven. The mother and the older child were HIV positive and for years Cláudio helped make sure they had the drugs they needed. After the funding was stopped in January, Cláudio was largely gone from their lives. But she later found out what happened to the family. The story is as follows. The mother arrived at the health facility following the funding cuts, where she was told that very little of her medication was left in stock. She was given a small bottle – much less than her usual refill. She went home and rationed the drugs, taking them on some days and skipping others. Her condition quickly deteriorated, and in March she died. The two children she left behind went to stay with their grandmother. When the older child was taken to the hospital to collect his own ARVs, there was no one left who knew what drugs he was on. The facilitator was gone. The data clerks were gone. His mother was gone. Cláudio has not been able to reach the family in a while due to the long distance between her home and theirs, but she was told that the child has not been well. An uptick in deaths After the health system was torn apart, ANDA began compiling a record of the dead. One of the main provinces they have focused on is Manica (where the town of the same name is located). Among the vulnerable people that ANDA case workers had been protecting in this province, 22 have perished since January. Of that number, 16 are children. The figure is almost certainly a huge undercount since it only includes those who have died in four of Manica's nine districts. ANDA doesn't yet have precise data on mortality figures in previous periods, but according to Mulondo, this is much higher than what they ordinarily see. Government data also shows that HIV treatment efforts have stalled in Manica province compared with previous years. At the headquarters of the Sofala provincial government in Beira I was given access to a government dashboard which displays HIV treatment figures for each province. It showed that between April and December 2024 there had been 1,500 to 1,900 people starting ARVs in Manica each month. (In most months the figure had been closer to the upper end of this range). But after Trump's executive order in January this figure declined. In March (the most recent month for which there is data) only 1,308 people are recorded as having started treatment. Provincial health officials say that not only are they seeing fewer people starting treatment, they are also observing an uptick in the number of HIV patients who are stopping their medication. Previously, the case workers had followed up with patients who failed to collect their ARV refills on time. Now, those people simply become lost to the system. Indeed, the government dashboard shows that in Manica there were fewer people on ARV treatment in March than there had been at the beginning of the year. Food shortage The impact of the sudden removal of US-funded case workers in this region extends far beyond the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases. For many people, the case workers had been the only sources of stability in an otherwise extremely volatile context. The rural village of Makurungu is 270km from Manica town. Here, homes are largely made of unplastered mud walls, topped with roofs of iron sheeting or thatch. The village is in the province of Sofala, where a different US-funded organisation, ComuSanas, has been responsible for hiring case workers. Much like ANDA, the organisation lost its funding in January, and its case workers were laid off. In Makurungu, this has often led to a deep sense of fear and abandonment. One resident who had been a beneficiary of the programme explains that before the aid cuts took place there was a period when many people in this area were close to starving. But case workers from ComuSanas had organised food baskets for those in need. Now that the programme is gone she doesn't know who will come to their aid the next time there is a food shortage. 'The future is dark,' she says. Elsewhere, another resident, Amelia Waston, says she is deeply saddened by the loss of her case worker, whom she had come to view as a member of her own family. For years the case worker had been a consistent source of support for her and her children, but since January they hardly see her. No one had told Waston why she stopped coming. Makurungu case worker makes Rubio an offer Near Waston's home I sit with a group of former case workers from ComuSanas, where I hear yet another story about an HIV-positive child who died in the past month, possibly because of the funding cuts. This time it is a 14-year-old girl. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the former Doge point man, Elon Musk, have both asserted that 'no one has died' as a result of the aid cuts. I tell the case workers about Rubio's assertion and ask them what they think. An older man, Faustino Samuel, answers. Until that point in the interview, Samuel had spoken only in Portuguese, the lingua franca in Mozambique. But in response to that question he begins speaking in a local language, Ndau. 'It isn't true,' he says. 'If he could come here, we could show him the evidence.' According to the local translator I was travelling with, the man switched to his native tongue for a very particular reason. He wanted to transmit this message as clearly as possible, the translator said. He wanted people to know what is happening here. DM If you'd like to find out how you can support ComuSanas, you can contact their director, Virgilio Mubai by email: [email protected]. If you'd like to find out how you can help ANDA, you can contact their technical director, Prince Mulondo, by email: [email protected]. Note: Most of our interviews were in Portuguese and were mediated by a local translator. We subsequently transcribed and translated the recordings of these interviews using AI-based software, including Descript and ChatGPT. Where there was a significant mismatch between the interpretations of the translator and the software, we contacted the interviewee or got third parties to help translate the recordings. All parents and guardians gave permission to use the photos of children in this article. All people photographed understood that their photos would be published in news media. The cost of travel, accommodation and the journalist's remuneration was shared between Spotlight and GroundUp.
IOL News
3 days ago
- IOL News
You won't believe which jobs are the biggest downers for mental health
While women were twice as likely to report depression, the data around male-dominated professions may reveal something more hidden and more dangerous. Image: Mikhail Nilov /pexels We spend most of our waking hours at work, so it's no surprise that our jobs can shape our mental health in lasting ways. The average person works about 90 000 hours in their lifetime. This estimate assumes a 40-hour work week from around age 22 to 65, with holidays and sick leave included. But new findings published in the "Journal of the American Medical Association" (JAMA) are shining a harsh spotlight on just how deep that connection runs, especially for men. According to a sweeping analysis of more than 500 000 American workers between 2015 and 2019, some jobs come with a far greater emotional toll than others. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Next Stay Close ✕ Over 80 000 people in the study reported being diagnosed with depression in their lifetime, with workers in certain industries feeling the brunt of that burden. And while women were twice as likely to report depression, the data around male-dominated professions may reveal something more hidden and more dangerous. Employers need to customize support for their specific workforce, not just hand out one-size-fits-all solutions. Image: The jobs most linked to depression 80 319 respondents reported a lifetime diagnosis of depression-women at twice the rate of men (JAMA, 2025). Highest depression rates: Community & social service. Food preparation & serving. Arts, entertainment. Sports. Media. Health care. Retail. Education & library services. On the flip side, construction and mining jobs showed the lowest rates of diagnosed depression. However, researchers caution that these numbers are misleading. While fewer diagnoses are reported in these male-dominated fields, suicide rates among these workers are among the highest, according to the CDC, and have been rising since 2000. So, what gives? Experts suggest that many men in these sectors may suffer in silence due to stigma, toxic masculinity, or the lack of access to mental health resources in remote or rural work environments. 'Just because depression isn't diagnosed doesn't mean it's not there,' says Dr Manish Sapra, Executive Director of Northwell Health's Behavioral Health Service Line. Speaking to "The New York Post", Sapra stressed the need for tailored mental health benefits that reflect the reality of each industry: 'Employers need to customise support for their specific workforce, not just hand out one-size-fits-all solutions.' In other words, the wellness app your company offers may not cut it, especially if your employees are working 12-hour shifts in emotionally heavy or physically risky environments. While depression tends to be underdiagnosed in men globally, South African research backs this up, too. A study published in "The South African Journal of Psychiatry" notes that men are less likely to seek help for mental health issues due to cultural expectations and fear of appearing weak. This is especially relevant in fields like construction or mining, where 'toughness' is still glorified and vulnerability is taboo. When men do reach a breaking point, it can be too late. The South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG) reports that men are more likely to die by suicide, despite women being more likely to attempt it, a heartbreaking testament to how male mental health struggles often go unnoticed and untreated. If your job feels emotionally draining, you're not imagining it. Image: Oladimeji Ajegbile/Pexels
