HEALTH PLUS MED­ICAL COR­RE­SPON­DENT

Be­fore the pan­dem­ic of COVID-19 brought health­care to its knees, Di­a­betes was al­ready a glob­al epi­dem­ic with more than 420 mil­lion peo­ple liv­ing with this dread­ed dis­ease world­wide. No­vem­ber is de­clared Na­tion­al Di­a­betes Month, a time when com­mu­ni­ties across the world team up to bring at­ten­tion to di­a­betes. When you con­sid­er that one in two of the peo­ple who have di­a­betes go by un­di­ag­nosed, it is easy to un­der­stand why an aware­ness month is need­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO), this num­ber is es­ti­mat­ed to rise to 570 mil­lion by 2030 and to 700 mil­lion by 2045 be­cause so many are not aware they’re liv­ing with the dis­ease and all the health risks that poor­ly man­aged blood sug­ar can pose. At this piv­otal mo­ment, with COVID-19 still spread­ing, many peo­ple who need treat­ment for di­a­betes are not re­ceiv­ing the ap­pro­pri­ate screen­ing for di­ag­no­sis, health ser­vices and med­ica­tions they need.

WORLD DI­A­BETES DAY – WHY NO­VEM­BER 14TH?

World Di­a­betes Day was joint­ly in­tro­duced by the WHO and the In­ter­na­tion­al Di­a­betes Fed­er­a­tion (IDF). The glob­al di­a­betes aware­ness cam­paign was in­tro­duced amidst con­cern over an es­ca­lat­ing di­a­betes epi­dem­ic.

No­vem­ber 14th is a sig­nif­i­cant date in the di­a­betes cal­en­dar be­cause it marks the birth­day of the man who co-dis­cov­ered in­sulin, Fred­er­ick Bant­i­ng, who dis­cov­ered in­sulin, along­side Charles Best.

FACTS (as stat­ed by WHO)

One in two adults with di­a­betes are un­aware of their sta­tus.

Four out of five adults with un­di­ag­nosed di­a­betes live in low- and mid­dle-in­come coun­tries.

Per­sons un­aware of their sta­tus are at great risk of de­bil­i­tat­ing com­pli­ca­tions.

Di­a­betes is a ma­jor cause of blind­ness, kid­ney fail­ure, heart at­tacks, stroke and low­er limb am­pu­ta­tion.

Peo­ple with di­a­betes are al­so at in­creased risk of se­vere dis­ease and death from COVID-19, and this poor prog­no­sis seems to be height­ened with ad­vanced age.

DE­BUNK­ING MYTHS

There are sev­er­al myths about di­a­betes that are all too com­mon­ly re­port­ed as facts. These mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions of di­a­betes can some­times be harm­ful and lead to an un­fair stig­ma around the con­di­tion. Among all the dif­fer­ent ideas that can spread due to mis­in­for­ma­tion and a lack of ed­u­ca­tion, we have picked out five myths about di­a­betes that can make di­ag­no­sis es­pe­cial­ly dif­fi­cult to process:

MYTH 1: TYPE 2 DI­A­BETES ON­LY AF­FECTS FAT PEO­PLE

FACT: Whilst type 2 di­a­betes is of­ten as­so­ci­at­ed with be­ing over­weight and obese, it is demon­stra­bly un­true that type 2 di­a­betes on­ly af­fects over­weight peo­ple.

Around 20% of peo­ple with type 2 di­a­betes are of a nor­mal weight, or un­der­weight.

MYTH 2: IF YOU TAKE IN­SULIN YOU HAVE TYPE 1 DI­A­BETES

FACT: Many peo­ple with type 2 di­a­betes al­so use in­sulin. Some peo­ple can man­age their blood sug­ar lev­els through healthy lifestyle choic­es and with the ad­di­tion of oth­er med­ica­tions. How­ev­er, as type 2 di­a­betes pro­gress­es, med­ica­tion and lifestyle changes alone may not be enough and in­sulin can be a safe and ef­fec­tive treat­ment for keep­ing you healthy.

MYTH 3: PEO­PLE WITH TYPE 2 DI­A­BETES MUST ELIM­I­NATE SWEETS/CAR­BO­HY­DRATES

FACT: Car­bo­hy­drates may raise blood glu­cose lev­els as they are bro­ken down in­to glu­cose to pro­vide en­er­gy for the body. A healthy, bal­anced di­et in­clud­ing car­bo­hy­drates is rec­om­mend­ed by the In­ter­na­tion­al Di­a­bet­ic Fed­er­a­tion in main­tain­ing a healthy blood sug­ar lev­el. Peo­ple with type 2 di­a­betes should how­ev­er, mon­i­tor their car­bo­hy­drate con­sump­tion and glycemic in­dex of foods close­ly, to en­sure that they have enough en­er­gy, while not trig­ger­ing high blood sug­ar lev­els.

It does mean hav­ing sweets/car­bo­hy­drates in mod­er­a­tion and de­creas­ing por­tion sizes, while en­sur­ing they are count­ed in­to your to­tal car­bo­hy­drate in­take. The best way to de­ter­mine how you are han­dling the ex­tra sweets/treats, is to check your blood sug­ar two hours af­ter you eat.

How­ev­er, car­bo­hy­drates are present in a va­ri­ety of food (in­clud­ing fruit and veg­eta­bles), which may al­so be im­por­tant sources of oth­er nu­tri­ents. Hence, it may not be prac­ti­cal to to­tal­ly avoid car­bo­hy­drates. Con­sult a di­eti­cian, who can of­fer ad­vice on a suit­able di­et for di­a­bet­ic pa­tients.

MYTH 4: A HIGH-PRO­TEIN DI­ET IS BEST FOR DI­A­BET­IC PA­TIENTS

FACT: There are two false­hoods in this state­ment alone! A high-pro­tein di­et is not bet­ter for di­a­bet­ic peo­ple, nor is any fad di­et good for any­one to fol­low. The on­ly di­et you need is the one that is right for you and your body. High-pro­tein di­ets have been linked to in­sulin re­sis­tance in di­a­bet­ic pa­tients, so stick to your bal­anced reg­i­men as guid­ed by your physi­cian and/or di­eti­cian.

MYTH 5: WOMEN WITH GES­TA­TION­AL DI­A­BETES WILL GO ON TO DE­VEL­OP TYPE 2 DI­A­BETES

FACT: While stud­ies have shown that women who de­vel­op ges­ta­tion­al di­a­betes dur­ing preg­nan­cy are at high­er risk of de­vel­op­ing type 2 di­a­betes in their fu­ture, it is far from a for­gone con­clu­sion. There may be things that you can do to re­duce your risk, in­clud­ing main­tain­ing a healthy body weight, eat­ing bal­anced meals with lots of veg­eta­bles, and ex­er­cis­ing reg­u­lar­ly, for ex­am­ple walk­ing for at least 30 min­utes five days per week.

We hope this clears un­for­tu­nate stig­mas and mis­in­for­ma­tion as­so­ci­at­ed with Di­a­betes. One thing to be cer­tain of, it is a dis­ease that com­pli­cates the qual­i­ty of one’s life but aware­ness, ear­ly treat­ment and con­trolled man­age­ment are cru­cial to re­duc­ing the com­plex se­que­lae.

Look out for the HEALTH PLUS spe­cial pub­li­ca­tion on No­vem­ber 17th ded­i­cat­ed to DI­A­BETES MEL­LI­TUS.