Diabetes Deaths Rise as Sugar Sales Grow

City Health Department Reports Fatalities Up 50% for Men and 150% for Women in 30 Years.

Increased consumption of sugar is given as a probable explanation of the increased death rate from diabetes during the last thirty years, in a bulletin issued by the New York City Health Department yesterday. According to the bulletin, the diabetes death rate has increased 50 per cent for men during that period, and 150 per cent for women.

"Hand in hand with this has been a corresponding increase in the per capita consumption of sugar," the bulletin continues, "so that it appears probable that we, especially the ladies, are overtaking our bodies with too much sugar."

The average number of deaths per year for the five-year period ended with 1902 is given as 395. Averages for successive five-year periods from then to the present are given as follows: 

1902-1907, 588;

1907-1912, 748;

1912-1917, 1,049;

1917-1922, 1,122;

1922-1927, 1,359;

The suggestion that women particularly are eating more sweets gained added interest by its contrast to conclusions drawn in London following the drop of the cocoa market. Recent dispatches gave the explanation that cigarettes have leargely displaced candy in the diet of young women, thus diminishing the demand for cocoa. But in this country, it would seem from the Health Department's view, sugar has not been similarly affected.