‘Present healthcare systems not equipped to prevent diabetes complications’

The seventh edition of the convention saw around 120 faculty from across the world as well as 950 delegates including doctors, dietitians, and diabetes educators.

Speaking in the panel, Jothydev Kesavadev suggested adopting some prevailing preventive healthcare models in India to successfully reduce the shocking rise in treating costly complications of diabetes. A majority of diabetes patients succumb to kidney disease, heart attack and foot ulcers before they realise the importance of seriously treating the disease increasing the treatment cost by several folds.

The two-day convention was inaugurated by Dr Cherian Varghese (Acting Director, Non-Communicable Diseases(NCD), World Health Organisation (WHO), Geneva). With diabetes taking on epidemic proportions in the developing world, the disease has become a priority for the WHO. It is estimated that India alone has close to 75 million diabetes patients.

Incidentally, the onset of diabetes is now earlier than before as children are being fed with foods rich in saturated fats along with carbonated beverages, and with no focus on daily exercise.