JEDDAH, 23 April 2008 — Prevalence of diabetes across Saudi Arabia has reached “epidemic levels,” soaring from 17 to 25 percent during the last 10 years.
This means that one out of every four people is suffering from diabetes, according to Dr. Ashraf Abdul Quayoom Amir, assistant director of health affairs for primary health care at the Ministry of Health, Makkah.
“The spread of the disease should be tackled as a priority, otherwise the continuous increase of victims of diabetes will cripple the nation’s fiscal and human resources,” said Dr. Amir who presented a research paper at the 12th annual Pan-Arab Conference for Diabetes held in Cairo recently.
Doctors highlighted for the importance of closely monitoring the widespread of diabetes, which is hitting a record high in the region.
The severity of diabetes lies in the fact that it forms a syndrome of other bodily complications and serious health ailments such as high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol levels, heart disease, kidney disease, peripheral neuropathy, and diabetic foot complications that may reach the point of gangrene, eventually leading to amputation, Dr. Amir said.
As for the main causes of the disease, Dr. Amir said that there were several grave factors leading to diabetes.
Some are controllable, eating healthy instead of unhealthy eating habits, the proliferation of inactive lifestyles and lack of physical effort, in addition to the psychological tension and stress that we are exposed to on a daily basis. In addition, there are uncontrollable factors leading to diabetes, such as genetic and hereditary factors that play an important role in this disease as well.
Dr. Amir urged doctors to treat diabetes with utmost care and with highest priority, stressing the importance of combined efforts of all parties involved to stem the rising number of diabetes patients, through increasing awareness and educating both patients and physicians alike.
Discussing the economic repercussions of diabetes, Dr. Majid Hamza, professor of neurology and pain at the University of Virginia who is also the director of the American National Program for Pain Treatment and director of intrusive spinal cord treatment unit, explained how tackling the proliferation of the disease from an economic perspective could reduce incidence of diabetes.
In the past, the focus in the United States lay in dealing with the disease by establishing rehabilitation centers for diabetics and helping them resume their role in society instead of preventing the disease.
However, the organizers of the rehab program found that they suffered the downside of high cost, and thus were forced to find a more cost effective way of treating diabetes, leading to the discovery of early disease prevention and methods of dealing with cases of pre-diabetes spread in adolescence.
Professor Hamza revealed that peripheral neuropathy, a complication associated with diabetes, cost the United States more than $11 billion every year; not to mention the indirect economic losses incurred due to absenteeism from work because of this pain.
“Peripheral neuropathy treatment options are so limited and the nonsteroid anti-inflammatory drugs have proved futile. However, the introduction of a new generation of medicines such as ‘pregabalin’ known as ‘lyrica’, which has been approved by FDA, has been a breakthrough in the management of this tough health issue,” he added.
Dr. Abdulrahman Al-Meghamsi, consultant endocrinology and diabetes and chief internist at King Khaled Ophthalmology Hospital, shed light on the fact that diabetes is one of the main causes of vision loss and blindness worldwide.
“Eight out of every 10 heart attack sufferers are diabetics, while more than 50 percent of those who suffer from kidney failure are diabetic patients originally,” Dr. Al-Meghamsi said. “The solution does not only lie in investing in the opening of sophisticated medical centers as much as it lies in the early detection of diabetes.”
The priority, he said, should be to establish specialized centers offering integrated services ranging from health and nutrition awareness, investigating cases of pre-diabetes, to offering effective treatment for patients.
Dr. Ayman Mohammed Ibrahim, consultant internist at Jeddah-based Dr. Erfan & Bagedo General Hospital, called for focusing on educating the public, in particular children and adolescents, on nutrition, concentrating on the quality of food provided to them at school canteens in order to control the increasing cases of diabetes
