Ten percent of the population in Pakistan is suffering from diabetes, one of the most challenging public health problems of the 21st century and the leading cause of morbidity and mortality all over the world.
This was stated by Dr Panjwani Centre for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research (PCMD) Assistant Professor Dr Hafizur Rehman, while delivering a lecture on “Diabetes: Prevention and Management through Natural Life Style” at the Latif Ebrahim Jamal (LEJ) National Science Information Centre at University of Karachi (KU) on Saturday.
The lecture was organised by PCMD in collaboration with Virtual Education Project Pakistan (VEPP) as a part of series of public awareness lectures on common diseases of Pakistan.
The lecture was attended by healthcare professionals, students, research scholars, welfare activists and the general public.
Rehman informed the audience that Asia is the epicentre of diabetes and home to about 60 percent of the world’s diabetic population.
The epidemic is driven by consumption of more carbohydrates, lack of exercise, excessive eating or at irregular hours, intake of fatty and junk foods, rapid urbanisation, mechanisation, computerisation, nutritional transition, late night eating, late night sleeping, excessive television watching, maternal hyperglycaemia, maternal malnutrition, depression and environmental pollutants, he added.
The professor said that the world prevalence of diabetes among adults is 8.3 percent, while the disease affected 366 million adults in 2011 that will increase by 9.9 percent and affect 552 million adults by 2030.
The large number of diabetic subjects in Pakistan will gradually lose their efficiency and potency, causing direct and indirect burden on the family, to the society and ultimately to the country, he said. “Because of the huge premature morbidity and mortality associated with diabetes, its prevention and control are key issues,” he added.
Rehman said that in primary healthcare, natural products have been the source of medicinal agents since earliest times. “Today also, they continue to play a dominant role in the primary healthcare of about 80 percent of the world’s population,” he added.
Products and medicinal agents derived from natural sources are also an essential feature in the healthcare systems of the remaining 20 percent of the population in developed countries, he said, adding that natural products once served as the source of all drugs and even today more than 25 percent of all drugs in clinical use are derived from natural products.
In the developing world, many people use different natural products for control or management of diseases including diabetes.
Almost 70 percent population lives in rural areas of these countries and 70 percent of them rely on traditional medicine as a primary healthcare.
A healthy lifestyle, good food, regular exercise and through a natural lifestyle, this disease can be managed.
‘10 percent Pakistanis diabetic’
