Maj Gen. Dr. Ketab Al-Otaibi, director of the department of medical services at Riyadh Armed Forces Hospital, inaugurated the conference in the midst of a large gathering of men and women medics and paramedics who deal with cardiovascular diseases in their respective hospitals and health facilities in the Kingdom.

“Incidence of diabetes amounts to 30 to 40 percent of the Kingdom’s population,” Meshael Al-Mutairi, acting director of pharmacy at Prince Sultan Cardiac Center told Arab News on the sidelines of the conference.

Al-Mutairi, who is also the chairman of the scientific committee of the conference, said that preventing diabetes is preventing cardiovascular diseases. “Regular physical exercise, wholesome dietary habits, and a healthy lifestyle are some of the best ways to protect people in the Kingdom from developing type 2 diabetes, a health disorder forerunner to many other medical complications,” he said.

Saudi Arabia holds third position worldwide in the number of diabetic patients, just after the United Arab Emirates, while Bahrain and Kuwait hold fourth and fifth positions respectively. Early detection of diabetes would help 60 percent of people take precautions against the disease by changing their lifestyle and conducting regular physical exercises.

The chairman urged people to go for regular checkups to test their blood pressure. “Although we have found a fair percentage of hypertension cases in the Kingdom, we still believe there are many more unreported cases of hypertension, which is a silent killer.”

To avoid cardiovascular diseases, he advised people to take concerted efforts to reduce smoking and to avoid the intake of fatty foods and be active in their life.

Over 50 percent of the country’s population is obese, so large numbers are vulnerable to suffering from the condition. The government has set up 20 new diabetes centers across the Kingdom.

Speaking about the meeting, he said that this is the only cardiovascular pharmacotherapy conference in Saudi Arabia and the largest specialized cardiac pharmacotherapy conference in the Middle East.

“It is organized by the pharmacy department of Prince Sultan Cardiac Center, which strives to present topics that highlight new evidence-based medicine findings reported within the last two years that impact cardiovascular clinical practice,” Al-Mutairi said.

In his speech, Al-Otaibi said the conference provided a platform for the international exchange of ideas between those with clinical and scientific expertise. “There is a strong need to get international expertise in preventing cardiovascular diseases in the Kingdom,” Al-Otaibi said.

“Under the visionary transformation of Saudi Arabia to a knowledge and skills-based economy, we are seeing massive investments in infrastructure, especially education and healthcare,” associate professor from the University of Tennessee Theodore Morton said during his lecture on “Perspectives on pharmacy education and training in Saudi Arabia.”

“This brings a welcome opportunity to transform existing – but underperforming – education, training and practice in pharmacy to meet the highest international standards,” he noted.

In doing so, he said, “Our responsibility to the profession and patients is to educate and train Saudis to practice pharmacy regardless of setting, with top priority on helping patients achieve optimal outcomes from medication therapy.”