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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019
According to Sylvie Paquet, managing director of the Maison du Diabète, there are an estimated 26,000 diabetics residing in Luxembourg, around 8-10% of which have type 1 diabetes. She says that at the time the centre was founded in 2003, it helped fill a gap, since there hadn’t been any specialised services in the hospitals. These days, she says, there’s a roughly 50-50 split of people who were sent by their doctors compared to those who visit on their own initiative. While Behrend has found a way to cope with his own diabetes, he says it’s extremely difficult for children. “I think children have a much more difficult process of coming to terms [in part] because of peer pressure.” Parquet adds that everyone handles diagnosis differently, but in the case of children, “it’s good when the parents can meet each other”, which is something the centre can help facilitate. Informational events
World Diabetes Day falls on 14 November each year, so it’s no surprise that the association holds or partners on a number of walks and conferences around the occasion. On the evening of the day itself, for example, a conference will be held at the Centre Hospitalier de Luxembourg focused on the seven points to better understand, prevent and treat diabetes. The team hopes diabetics will establish good habits early, as complications from diabetes can be severe, ranging from blood clots and nerve damage to increased chance of infection. “It’s a day-to-day sickness that you have to live with day to day,” Behrend says. “All the bad things that can happen to you, like problems with your eyes, kidneys, nerves, don’t show up until 20-30 years afterwards, but once they’re there, they’re there. As soon as you get a good structured daily life, as much as possible, the better.” × ↳ www.ald.lu
words photo
Natalie A. Gerhardstein Jan Hanrion/Maison Moderne
Meteorologist Luca Mathias says tornadoes occasionally occur in Luxembourg
Tracking tornadoes close to home On 9 August at around 5:20 p.m. a tornado
formed in Longwy, France, then crossed the border into Luxembourg, passing through the towns of Rodange, Lamadelaine, Pétange and Bascharage, before breaking up in Schouweiler about 30 minutes later. It was an F2 intensity tornado, which corresponds with wind speeds of 180km/h-250km/h. Nineteen people were injured, two severely, but no one was killed. Several hundred buildings were damaged. Although tornadoes are infrequent in the grand duchy, they are not entirely unknown either, according to Luca Mathias, a meteorologist at Meteolux. For example, there were confirmed tornadoes in 2012, 2014 and 2015, and separate suspected tornadoes in 2014 and 2015. All but one of these struck the northern half of Luxembourg (the exception being a tornado that
hit Munsbach in February 2015). Mathias is one of 25 meteorologists at Meteolux, which is part of the Air Navigation Administration. There is an average of 200 to 300 tornadoes in Europe each year, mostly (but not always) taking place between May and August, he states. They are more frequent in southern England, northwestern France, the Benelux countries, Germany and northern Italy (but can occur elsewhere). Between 1950 and 2013, tornadoes in Europe killed 316 people, injured more than 4,400 and caused about €1bn in damage. Strong European tornadoes are typically formed when colder northern air clashes with warm, humid air coming up from the Mediterranean. “An elementary ingredient for the formation of tornadoes is a strong vertical change of wind direc-