Ac­cord­ing to the most re­cent sta­tis­tics, 537 mil­lion peo­ple world­wide are liv­ing with di­a­betes. That in­cludes more than 51 mil­lion peo­ple in the North Amer­i­can and Caribbean re­gion, and it is es­ti­mat­ed that by 2045, this num­ber will rise to 63 mil­lion.

Sad­ly, our coun­try has one of the most preva­lent and fastest-grow­ing cas­es of di­a­betes in the world. Cur­rent­ly, there is a 14.8% preva­lence of di­a­betes in T&T and at least 148,900 to­tal cas­es of di­a­betes in adults.

TATIL and TATIL Life have recog­nised the ur­gent need to help bring more sen­si­ti­sa­tion to the sit­u­a­tion and help those liv­ing with the dis­ease have a bet­ter chance at a long life with health man­age­ment tech­niques.

Di­a­betes is a con­di­tion that hap­pens when your blood sug­ar (glu­cose) is too high. It de­vel­ops when your pan­creas doesn’t make enough in­sulin or any at all, or when your body isn’t re­spond­ing to the ef­fects of in­sulin prop­er­ly.

It af­fects peo­ple of all ages. Most forms of di­a­betes are chron­ic (life­long), and all forms are man­age­able with med­ica­tion and/or lifestyle changes.

The sit­u­a­tion is dire around the re­gion. In 2019, the coun­try in the Amer­i­c­as with the high­est age-stan­dard­ised mor­tal­i­ty (ex­clud­ing chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease) due to di­a­betes was Guyana, with 82.6 deaths per 100,000 pop­u­la­tion. Sev­er­al Caribbean coun­tries were al­so in the top ten, in­clud­ing third-placed Trinidad and To­ba­go and fourth-placed Haiti at 69.6 and 68.2 per 100,000, re­spec­tive­ly.

One proven way to help fight chron­ic meta­bol­ic dis­eases is by en­cour­ag­ing the right lifestyle changes. TATIL and TATIL Life’s ef­forts to in­crease aware­ness have be­come cru­cial to help­ing peo­ple un­der­stand the im­por­tance of ear­ly de­tec­tion and man­age­ment.

Their ef­forts are in line with this year’s theme for World Di­a­betes Day, which is 'Em­pow­er­ing Glob­al Health'. The theme not on­ly cen­tres on in­di­vid­ual health but al­so stress­es the im­por­tance of com­mu­ni­ties work­ing to­geth­er to com­bat this glob­al is­sue. Some­thing that TATIL has been do­ing in earnest since 2019 when it an­swered the call to help fight this dead­ly dis­ease.

Since launch­ing the Di­a­betes Aware­ness Cor­po­rate So­cial Re­spon­si­bil­i­ty ini­tia­tive in No­vem­ber 2019, un­der the theme “Di­a­betes, A Fam­i­ly Con­cern,” TATIL and TATIL Life have con­tin­ued to con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to rais­ing aware­ness about di­a­betes and its many com­pli­ca­tions.

For the last three years, one of the ma­jor ac­tiv­i­ties on the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion cal­en­dar has been the an­nu­al TATIL and DATT Sixth Form Sum­mer In­tern­ship. This year, the pro­gramme host­ed 36 stu­dents, and pro­vid­ed them with com­pre­hen­sive med­ical ex­pe­ri­ence, help­ing them be­come well-round­ed health­care pro­fes­sion­als.

Over sev­en weeks, the TATIL and DATT Sixth Form in­terns were ed­u­cat­ed about the dis­ease’s im­pact, the bio­chem­istry of di­a­betes, the im­por­tance of ethics in med­ical re­search, health pro­mo­tion and nu­tri­tion, in­ter­ven­tion and fundrais­ing strate­gies.

They al­so got a chance to gain ad­ver­tis­ing in­sights, vis­it UWI for an in­tro­duc­tion to lab skills, and prac­tice blood sug­ar, glu­cose and blood pres­sure test­ing. The stu­dents al­so learnt how to use the di­a­betes reti­nal cam­era, which was do­nat­ed by TATIL and TATIL Life to DATT in 2021.

The di­a­betes reti­nal cam­era has been a ma­jor weapon in the fight against di­a­betes. It has al­ready helped those liv­ing with the dis­ease im­mense­ly. To date, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 3,000 Trin­bag­o­ni­ans have ben­e­fit­ted from free ex­ams with the eye screen­ing cam­era, which has been a vi­sion saver for many.

The cam­era al­lows for reti­nal imag­ing, which is a di­ag­nos­tic test that cre­ates high-qual­i­ty dig­i­tal im­ages of the in­ner, back sur­face of a per­son’s eye. It al­lows the di­ag­no­sis of many eye con­di­tions like di­a­betes-re­lat­ed retinopa­thy, glau­co­ma and mac­u­lar de­gen­er­a­tion.

At the grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny at the end of this year’s in­take, M. Musa Ibrahim, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor of TATIL and TATIL Life, re­mind­ed the stu­dents just how im­por­tant their fu­ture con­tri­bu­tion to­wards the fight against di­a­betes would be.

“Thanks to this re­cent­ly con­clud­ed sev­en-week in­tern­ship pro­gramme, you now have a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty to share your new-found knowl­edge with your peers and oth­er gen­er­a­tions, mak­ing a mean­ing­ful im­pact in your homes, schools, and com­mu­ni­ties. You might be sur­prised at how far your in­flu­ence and pas­sion for ed­u­cat­ing oth­ers can reach.

"This, we ar­dent­ly hope, is just one of the many pos­i­tive out­comes for those who have shown a strong in­ter­est in the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion’s Youth Arm.”

The work con­tin­ues for TATIL and TATIL Life and in recog­ni­tion of Di­a­betes Month in No­vem­ber, they have proud­ly joined world­wide or­gan­i­sa­tions in cel­e­brat­ing World Di­a­betes Day on No­vem­ber 14. As part of this ob­ser­vance, the TATIL Build­ing will be il­lu­mi­nat­ed in blue, the of­fi­cial colour rep­re­sent­ing di­a­betes aware­ness world­wide.

Added to that, the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed TATIL DATT Run/Walk 5K, pow­ered by TATIL and TATIL Life, will take place in Port-of-Spain on No­vem­ber 17, en­cour­ag­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion from the com­mu­ni­ty in sup­port of di­a­betes ed­u­ca­tion and aware­ness.

Added to that, the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed TATIL Run DATT 5K, will take place in Port-of-Spain on Sun­day 17th No­vem­ber, pro­ceeds from the TATIL Run DATT 5K sup­ports the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T in their ed­u­ca­tion­al out­reach ef­forts and pro­vid­ing med­ical and di­ag­nos­tic as­sis­tance to di­a­bet­ics across the coun­try.

All age groups are en­cour­aged to come out and par­tic­i­pate. To reg­is­ter for TATIL Run DATT 5K, go to www.tatil­run­datt.com or to get ad­vice and re­sources on pre­vent­ing or man­ag­ing di­a­betes, feel free to vis­it the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T’s web­site at di­a­betes-tt.org.

Let’s join forces as we re­lent­less­ly fight this dis­ease which ac­cord­ing to some re­cent sta­tis­tics has claimed over four mil­lion lives to date.