Warangal becomes diabetes HQ

Experts blame junk food, stress & sedentary lifestyle

Warangal: Stress and sedentary lifestyle coupled with unhealthy food habits seem to have cast their shadow on people, especially men, in erstwhile Warangal district as they fall prey to diabetes in huge numbers. The prevalence of this lifestyle malady is higher than the State’s average by a whopping 1.4 per cent, Union Health Ministry data shows.

Data from the last round of union health ministry’s National Family Health Survey detected 6 per cent Telangana men aged between 15-49 years with high blood sugar on an average in the State but when it came to undivided Warangal district, 7.4 per cent men in the same age group were found to be facing the lifestyle disease.

This has city’s experts shocked as 7.4 per cent prevalence of high blood sugar in men population in the age group of 15-49 years translate into 86,000 people in the erstwhile Warangal district, which had recorded a population of 35 lakh (including 11.66 lakh men upto 50 years) as per 2011 census report.

Unlike women in undivided Warangal, men are more prone to eat out junk food frequently, lead stressful lives and have sedentary lifestyle without any physical exercise. This is why prevalence of high blood sugar is more in men here,” explained well-known endocrinologist Dr N Sudhakar Rao.

For the record, as per internationally accepted standards, a person is considered healthy and normal if his fasting glucose level is less than 100 mg/dl, pre-diabetic if his fasting glucose level is between 100-125 mg/dl while diabetic phase starts if the fasting glucose level is above 126 mg/dl. In case of high blood sugar, the fasting glucose level should be >140 mg/dl in a person.

While comparing the diabetes scenario prevailing during 1970s and 1980s with the present era, Dr Sudhakar Rao recalled that those days a diabetic patient used to be in their 50s or 60s.

“Now, the times have changed and I feel sorry that that both father and son come together for diabetes treatment but one can halt the disease with proper awareness, maintaining a disciplined diet and exercise,” added Dr Rao.

He also sounded a word of caution for family members of diabetic patients, advising them to mandatorily get their blood sugar level screened at least once in a month or in three months maximum as the disease has knack of surfacing when one member in a family is affected.

Though poor doctor- population ratio in undivided Warangal (right now there are only three practicing endocrinologists) is a big dampener for diabetes treatment, things are looking up in positive direction with established diabetes chain like Institute of Diabetes Endocrinology & Adiposity (Idea Clinics) making their foray in tier-II cities.

“The quality of diabetes care in tier-II cities is usually compromised due to lack of expertise, poor doctors-population ratio and dearth of well defined centres with facilities for screening and managing associated complications like diabetic nephropathy, diabetic retinopathy and diabetic foot,” said Dr. Shyam Kalavalapalli, senior endocrinologist with a rare distinction of being trained at all three best institutes in the UK - Cambridge, Oxford and Imperial College Hospital in London.

It may be mentioned here that Dr Shyam, an alumnus of Kakatiya Medical College, is the director of Hyderabad-based diabetes chain IDEA Clinics (Institute of Diabetes Endocrinology and Adiposity). Incidentally, the IDEA Clinics is setting up its branch at Nakkalagutta in Hanamkonda on August 13, which will be inaugurated by Warangal West MLA D Vinay Bhaskar.