JEDDAH, 25 March 2008 — People in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region face a 60 percent lifetime risk of developing diabetes, according to an official of the American Diabetes Association (ADA).
“It is very scary; most people would contract diabetes if they didn’t have the awareness of how to prevent the disease,” said Dr. John B. Buse, president, medicine and science of the ADA.
He said that the issue was widely recognized in the Kingdom and the big hope for the future was to detect diabetes early when the treatment is easier and usually more successful.
Dr. Buse was speaking at a press conference following the ADA’s educational training program to manage Diabetes in Africa and the Middle East held last week in Paris.
The program was supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Sanofi Aventis pharmaceutical company.
The genetic tendency to diabetes in Saudi Arabia is high; Dr. Buse said that according to the “thrifty gene hypothesis” when starvation and low levels of food has been common in an area for a few hundred years, people learned to do without adequate nourishment and this was to their advantage three to four generations ago. Now, however, he pointed out, there is plenty of food all the time and many people do not perform physical labor as before so what was a genetic advantage puts them at risk of diabetes and obesity. He said that there had not been a long period of inadequate food and starvation in western Europe, which means that there had been no genetic pressure for survival on little food.
“The most compelling problem is that the lifetime risk of getting diabetes in the Middle East is very high and it’s a real risk,” he remarked, adding that there needs to be public health campaigns in order to spread awareness of the need for changes in lifestyles. He said, “If you screen early, you can prevent diabetes and complications with treatment. Diabetic people can live a normal life if they take their medication and have regular medical checkups.”
The ADA’s training program entitled, “Standing Together Against Diabetes,” was attended by many physicians and other medical professionals from Africa and the Middle East. The program was a milestone in the exchange of diabetes research information between African and Middle Eastern medical professionals and the ADA. The delegates reviewed the ADA’s recommendations on diabetes screening and prevention and the most appropriate kinds of therapy. All those attending were given educational tool kits, which allow them to bring the ADA’s message to physicians in their home countries.
