KARACHI: Three-day international diabetes and endocrine congress was formally opened on Friday at a local hotel in which experts from Pakistan and abroad spoke on a variety of issues concerning the disease with special emphasis on millions of people suspected to have carried the disease but were unaware of its presence.

The health experts at an awareness seminar, the first of the congress, urged the people to modify their lifestyle, change their unhealthy dietary habits, include exercise and exertion in their daily life and take precautionary measures to prevent themselves from type II or lifestyle diabetes, which was mother of most illnesses.

They said millions of Pakistanis were pre-diabetics or likely to have diabetes sooner or later in their lives, but they could live a happy and healthy life by educating themselves, learning about their health conditions and changing their way of living into simple and healthy lifestyle.

The congress was organised by the Baqai Institute of Diabetology and Endocrinology (BIDE) of the Baqai Medical University.

Organisers said over 50 foreign delegates, including health experts, diabetologists, dieticians, nutritionists and surgeons from 26 countries and doctors and consultants from Pakistan were attending the conference.

The public awareness session was aimed at creating awareness of diabetes, its causes, symptoms and living with type I and type II diabetes, which is commonly referred to as lifestyle diabetes.

Barbara Eichorst from Chicago, United States, said millions of people were living with diabetes in the world but many of them were living almost normal lives by acquiring self-management education and changing their lifestyle.

“Lifestyle modification is the best medicine and approach in management of diabetes and the good thing is that it is absolutely free and costs nothing,” she said.

She urged the educators, doctors and diabetologists to educate masses on diabetes and how to prevent it, saying sedentary lifestyle was the main reason and cause of type II or lifestyle disease.

Another foreign specialist and athlete Lucas Forgarty from the US said he was an insulin-dependent patient since his early childhood but he never considered his illness as an impediment and played soccer, baseball and basketball without any difficulty although he had to continuously monitor his blood sugar and take insulin daily or several times a day depending on the requirement.

He advised people to educate their children about diabetes, saying he had seen many children who were well aware of the disease and eat healthy food to avoid getting overweight.

Erin Little, another type I diabetic and social mobilizer against diabetes, said in India and Pakistan, rice, especially biryani, was the basic food stuff instead of pizza and burgers, that was causing diabetes, as it was completely carbohydrates with little protein and asked people to avoid eating too much rice.

Dr Jamal Zafar, a professor of medicine from PIMS Islamabad, said in a country with millions of diabetics and millions others to become diabetics in coming years, mission of doctors and educators should be prevention of the disease.

“This mission starts from educating our children, who are ruining their lives by eating junk food and drinking fizzy drinks,” he added.

Dr Zaman Shaikh urged people to seek qualified doctors and consultants for treatment of their disease instead of going to faith healers and quacks.

Dr Zahid Miyan answered questions of participants.

Dr Zulfiqar Ali G Abbas, a specialist of diabetic foot in Africa, said that diabetic patients’ nerves in their feet get damaged over a period of up to seven years and after that they did not feel any sensation or pain in their feet despite deep wounds.

“Due to diabetes, these wounds get infected and are not easy to heal. These chronic wounds led to amputation of the foot and patients have to live a miserable life afterwards,” he said.

He said both in Africa and Pakistan, people tried home remedies, herbal medicine, local surgeries and go to faith healers for treatment of their diabetic feet and when situation got worse, they approached qualified doctors but then it was too late.

“If you are a diabetic, take good care of your feet.”

The seminar was also addressed by BIDE director Dr Abdul Basit, artist Anwar Iqbal, educator Irum Ghafoor, Dr Musarat Riaz while a dietician and a professional cook shared recipes for preparing low-calorie food for the diabetes patients.

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2016