Islamabad : The Department of General Medicine at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences is organising a campaign to increase awareness among public on diagnosis, prevention, management and control of diabetes, a major lifestyle disorder whose prevalence is increasing globally.
The department is organizing the campaign in connection with World Diabetes Day being observed on November 14 around the globe.
According to Deputy Director at PIMS Dr. Waseem Ahmed Khawaja, Professor Jamal Zafar at PIMS Medicine Department is supervising the activities being carried out to observe World Diabetes Day at the hospital.
He said during the campaign and public awareness seminar, physicians and dieticians will brief the attendees about the dietary and lifestyle modifications and monitoring of blood glucose levels. The attendees would be informed of importance of regular follow-ups and suggestions on how to avoid risk factors and health complications caused by diabetes.
The medicine department has already started creating awareness among patients visiting outpatient department on how the primary prevention of diabetes can be made possible by modifying risk factors such as obesity and insulin resistance, he said.
He added that PIMS arranges diabetic clinic in medical OPD that receives around 150 patients suffering from diabetes daily on average and it is alarming that 20 to 25 new patients are diagnosed daily with the disease at the department. The department refers a good number of diabetics with complications to other departments for management and treatment of problems involving vital organs like heart, liver, lungs, brain and stomach etc, said Dr. Khawaja.
It is important that the prevalence of diabetes is increasing globally while Asian countries contribute to more than 60 per cent of the world’s diabetic population as the prevalence of diabetes is much higher in these countries.
According to Professor Jamal, socio-economic growth and industrialization are rapidly occurring in many of the countries across Asia and the urban-rural divide in prevalence is narrowing as urbanization is spreading widely, adversely affecting the lifestyle of populations. Asians have a strong ethnic and genetic predisposition for diabetes and have lower thresholds for the environmental risk factors. As a result, they develop diabetes at a younger age and at a lower body mass index and waist circumference when compared with the Western population, he believes.
World Diabetes Day that is held on November 14 each year with a theme related to diabetes is the primary global awareness campaign of diabetes world and the theme of the day for 2018-19 is ‘Family and Diabetes’. World Diabetes Day observed in the past has already covered important topics like diabetes and human rights, diabetes and lifestyle, diabetes and obesity, diabetes in the disadvantaged and the vulnerable, diabetes in children and adolescents, women and diabetes, eyes on diabetes and Act today to change tomorrow.
Many health experts including Professor Jamal and Dr. Khawaja suggest that people living with any type of diabetes should take a day off from work on world diabetes day and spend time on talking about the disease. World Diabetes Day is celebrated worldwide by over 230 member associations of the International Diabetes Federation in more than 160 countries and territories, all member states of the United Nations, as well as by other associations and organizations, companies, healthcare professionals and people living with diabetes and their families.