KARACHI: Professor Dr Shamim Qureshi Department of Biochemistry, University of Karachi has said it is very alarming that Pakistan is ranked fourth all over the world and ranked second out of 21 countries in the Middle East and North African region by having the highest number of diabetic patients.
While addressing the seminar entitled “Diabetes: Protect Yourself and Your Family” which was organized by the department of biochemistry in collaboration with the University of Karachi Alumni Association (UKAA) Baltimore, Washington, USA, she said around 90 percent of these cases are reported to have type II diabetes.
Dr Shamim said, “More than 415 million people in the world are suffering from diabetes and the number is expected to increase up to 642 million by the end of 2030”. Approximately 80 percent of diagnosed diabetic patients belong to low and middle-income countries, she added.
She also enlightens the audience about the importance of awareness of diabetes by sharing the symptoms of diabetes and urged them to take proper precautions in this regard.
Another speaker, Dr Muhammad Zafar Abbasi from Baqai Institute of Diabetology and Endocrinology, emphasized that treatments like insulin injection in case of type I diabetes or oral antidiabetic medicines in case of type II diabetes are the only way to control blood sugar level.
He shared that these treatments would produce better results when accompanied by a diet with no sugar and low salt and exercise.
He told the audience that the onset of type II diabetes could be delayed by avoiding a sedentary lifestyle, smoking, tobacco use, and fast food full of high fat and triglycerides and this would control body weight as overweight or obesity increased the risk of type II diabetes.
Meanwhile, Dr Sadaf Ahmed, the Chief Executive Officer of the Advanced Education Institute and Research Center shared, “The theme of WDD 2020 is nurses and diabetes, and appreciated the services of male and female nurses in taking care of patients including diabetic patients”.
She said that Pakistan still needs more nurses. To fulfill this deficiency, she emphasized, “We should arrange programs to change the mindset of the people by telling them that nurses are as important doctors as taking care of patients is teamwork, not an individual task”.
