Pakistani experts develop tool to determine one’s risk of diabetes in less than a minute

After over a decade of rigorous research, Pakistani health experts have developed a questionnaire which can help a person ascertain, in less than a minute, whether they are diabetic or not and if they are at risk of contracting the disease in the future.

Eminent diabetologist and researcher Prof Dr Abdul Basit made the announcement on Friday at a news conference at the Karachi Press Club. “Risk Assessment of Pakistani Individuals with Diabetes (RAPID) is a three-point questionnaire for both men and women, developed after 10-12 years of thorough research and hard work. 

Within 30 seconds a person can now determine if he or she is diabetic or going to have diabetes in the next few years or not,” said Prof Basit, who is the Vice Chairman of the Health Research Advisory Board (HealthRAB), a think tank dedicated to promoting medical research in the country.

He added that the development of the questionnaire shows the importance of local research in healthcare. As per RAPID, if a Pakistani man is over 40 years of age, his waist is 35 inches or more and has a family history of diabetes, he is either already diabetic or going to develop it in upcoming years. For women, if their waist is 31.5 inches or more and they also fulfill the remaining two conditions, then they are also either diabetic or going to develop it.

Prof Basit said that they had also conducted a thorough research during the last one and a half year and after testing 10,800 individuals in 26 rural and urban districts of Pakistan, they found that more than 26 per cent of Pakistanis above the age of 20 are diabetic, more than 14 per cent are going to have diabetes soon and an alarming 52 per cent of Pakistanis have hypertension, which is commonly known as high blood pressure.

“It was basically the research carried out by our health experts that helped us find that 76 per cent of Pakistanis are overweight, while 10 million children are also obese or overweight,” Prof Basit said.

He added that HealthRAB wants to promote research in health sector areas as well and for that purpose, the organisation has been giving out health research awards in fields of cardiology and gynaecology for the last few years.

“Soon this award would also be started for experts and researchers conducting research in the field of gastroenterology and other specialties,” he said. Prominent physician Prof Dr Ejaz Vohra, the dean of Ziauddin University and HealthRAB board member, said that Pakistanis were less productive than people of other countries because they were “not as healthy as people in the developed world”.

He called for promoting research in healthcare to identify the local causes of diseases and develop prevention methods and treatments. Prof Vohra stressed on the urgent need for creating a National Disease Registries (NDRs), which would help researchers know the number of patients of specific diseases in the country and also help the government in preparing national health policies and allocating funds to the health sector.

“Unfortunately, our kings built shrines but Western kings established universities and colleges and now they are a lot better in the area of health. It is high time that we start giving importance to education, research and knowledge,” he said, adding: “I would urge philanthropists to come forward and like the developed world, allocate funds for research in the field of healthcare.”

Dr Zakiuddin Ahmed, HealthRAB secretary, said that the organisation was formed by senior most physicians and healthcare professionals and its creation was aimed at promoting the culture of research, capacity building of doctors and health experts, giving policy guidelines and creating national disease registries in Pakistan.

“So far, we have established National Joint Replacement Registry and Cardiology Registry of Pakistan. We are also planning to create gynaecology, stroke and a paediatric diseases registry very soon,” he announced.

Paediatric oncologist Prof Dr Shamvil Ashraf, the founder of Indus Children Cancer Hospital, said that they were also working on the creation of the National Childhood Cancer Registry, which would help identify the local types of cancers prevalent among Pakistani children, their causes and number of cases in the country. He was hopeful that the data would be made available publicly in the next couple of years.

On the occasion, HealthRAB officials also announced to give annual awards to health journalists for covering the field, writing investigative stories and promoting health awareness through their work.