Imagine that every time you leave your phone charger plugged in all day, every time you buy bottled water instead of using a refillable bottle or every time you you keep the Uber driver waiting while the engine is still running, you’re not just harming the planet—you’re actively participating in a deadly chain reaction. For the thousands of people living with diabetes in Nairobi’s slums, your everyday actions could be a life-or-death matter to them.
Diabetes is a ruthless disease. It doesn’t just affect the body—it attacks your very ability to live a normal life. For anyone with diabetes, every day is a challenge. But when the temperature rises and the air quality worsens, the situation becomes even more dangerous. For those already struggling with blood sugar management, heat adds a cruel twist, making it harder to maintain control of your body. And here’s the terrifying truth: climate change is making it worse, much worse.
Now, let’s break it down simply. Science has shown that rising temperatures directly impact the body’s ability to manage blood sugar. For someone living with diabetes, this could literally be the difference between life and death. Insulin, the hormone responsible for helping your cells absorb glucose for energy, becomes less effective in the heat. At high temperatures, the stability of insulin is compromised. The body’s ability to process blood sugar declines because the heat prevents insulin from doing its job efficiently. As a result, managing blood sugar becomes difficult.
This isn’t just a small inconvenience—it’s a serious health threat. When insulin becomes less effective, blood sugar rises uncontrollably. For diabetics, this can lead to dangerous complications: heart disease, kidney failure, diabetic ketoacidosis and even death. The heat, together with the stress it places on the body, only makes things worse. How? The body’s response to high temperatures includes the release of cortisol, a stress hormone that is supposed to help us handle stress, but it has an unintended consequence: it raises blood sugar levels. In a body already struggling to process glucose, the combination of heat, ineffective insulin and cortisol makes controlling blood sugar a much more difficult task. This means that if you’re already dealing with an insulin deficit in the first place, adding heat-induced stress just makes the situation worse.
Think about it: as temperatures rise, people with diabetes are pushed further and further away from being able to manage their condition. It’s a perfect storm of environmental and physiological factors that threaten their lives. And this storm is fueled by climate change which you are responsible for. Each time the temperature rises, every moment you ignore the connection between your actions and the planet’s health, you are pushing people living with diabetes closer to the edge. The science is clear: every degree of heat, every action you take that accelerates climate change, directly affects those who are already fighting to survive.
In Nairobi’s slums, it’s already difficult for people to manage their diabetes effectively. The environment they live in is unforgiving. Homes are built from corrugated metal, iron sheets or even mud. These materials absorb the sun’s energy throughout the day and slowly release it at night, causing indoor temperatures to soar, sometimes by as much as 10°C. Scientifically, this phenomenon is known as the “urban heat island” effect. During the day, these materials absorb solar radiation, which causes them to heat up. At night, rather than cooling down quickly, they release the stored heat, raising the temperature of the surrounding air. This leads to a significant increase in nighttime temperatures. And while we can turn on an air conditioner or switch on the fan, they rarely have any such luxury.
The lack of proper insulation and ventilation worsens this situation, making it difficult for residents to escape the heat, which further compounds the struggles of people living with diabetes especially for those with Type 1 diabetes, who already produce little to no insulin. The body’s inability to regulate glucose can send them into a state of diabetic ketoacidosis, a life-threatening condition. When you contribute to global warming, you are essentially tipping the scale toward their death.
Think about that for a moment: Every time you , you leave your phone charger plugged in all day, every time you buy bottled water instead of using a refillable bottle or every time you you keep the Uber driver waiting while the engine is still running, you are directly contributing to the conditions that make life even more impossible for someone with diabetes in Nairobi’s slums. You’re not just contributing to environmental degradation—you are making their fight against diabetes even harder and in some cases, you are making their death more likely.
The truth is simple: climate change and diabetes are inseparable. Every piece of plastic we throw away, every emission we produce and every unsustainable action we take pushes more people with diabetes to the brink of survival. These aren’t just abstract concepts—they’re real and they’re deadly.
So, when you hear about the rising death toll in Nairobi’s slums—when you read about those thousands of diabetic deaths each year—understand this: they are not dying because of some distant, unavoidable force. They are dying because of choices that are being made every day, all around the world. They are dying because we are collectively ignoring the link between our actions and their suffering.
This is a call to action. We can no longer afford to turn a blind eye. Climate change is a public health crisis and the people living with diabetes in Nairobi’s slums are paying the price. But we can change that. Every action you take to reduce your carbon footprint, to advocate for environmental reform and to make sustainable choices could be the difference between life and death for someone living with diabetic condition. The power to save lives is in our hands. It’s time we start acting like it.