Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

With di­a­betes re­main­ing one of the lead­ing caus­es of death in T&T, the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (DATT) is urg­ing the pub­lic to prac­tise health­i­er lifestyles and pri­ori­tise ear­ly de­tec­tion.

In com­mem­o­ra­tion of World Di­a­betes Day yes­ter­day, the as­so­ci­a­tion held ac­tiv­i­ties across all 20 branch­es, in­clud­ing a health fair host­ed by the San Fer­nan­do branch at Gulf City Mall in La Ro­maine.

The theme for this year’s event is Di­a­betes and the Work­place.

Sho­ba Dook­er­an, DATT’s 1st Vice Pres­i­dent and chair­per­son of the San Fer­nan­do Branch, un­der­scored the im­por­tance of lifestyle changes in man­ag­ing di­a­betes. “One of the things we en­cour­age for healthy lifestyles is your di­et. It’s a lifestyle change, ac­tu­al­ly—hav­ing a healthy di­et, be­ing phys­i­cal­ly ac­tive. And an­oth­er thing we need to con­sid­er is men­tal health. We are sup­posed to be healthy when it comes to the mind al­so, so it is a num­ber of fac­tors con­tribut­ing to­wards liv­ing a health­i­er lifestyle.”

Dook­er­an al­so stressed the val­ue of screen­ings and ed­u­ca­tion. “Most peo­ple are walk­ing around not know­ing they have di­a­betes.” If di­ag­nosed, she en­cour­aged them to join a sup­port group, as knowl­edge is pow­er.

Not­ing that No­vem­ber is World Di­a­betes Month, she said the as­so­ci­a­tion was al­so en­gag­ing young peo­ple through ini­tia­tives such as a pri­ma­ry school quiz for Stan­dard Five stu­dents, sec­ondary school de­bates, and a sixth-form in­tern­ship pro­gramme aimed at rais­ing aware­ness and pro­mot­ing healthy habits. De­spite these ef­forts, Dook­er­an not­ed that more work is need­ed.

The fair fea­tured a range of ex­hibitors of­fer­ing ser­vices and in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to di­a­betes and gen­er­al health. Among the par­tic­i­pants were the Trinidad Eye Hos­pi­tal and Life­time Smiles Den­tal. A num­ber of doc­tors al­so de­liv­ered lec­tures em­pha­sis­ing the im­por­tance of work­place health, ear­ly de­tec­tion, and sup­port for peo­ple liv­ing with di­a­betes.