Diabetes on Rise Due to Unhealthy Lifestyles
More than 1,000 people marched to the Kompong Thom provincial referral hospital on Saturday to mark World Diabetes Day and raise awareness of the chronic disease, which affects 3 percent of Cambodians and is increasing due to changing diets. Saturday’s event was organized by Mopotsyo, a local NGO that focuses on diabetes, and the majority of the participants were diabetics, who require lifelong treatment for high blood sugar. The first national survey on diabetes was conducted in 2010, with a second one planned for 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, adding that the number of sufferers in Cambodia is expected to increase due to a change in diet and people’s increasingly unhealthy lifestyles. … By the end of 2011, 8,310 patients were registered with Mopotsyo. By the end 2012, the number had increased to 12,500, according to the organization’s annual report. … Medication, he said, costs about $6 per month, but is not necessarily the only option for diabetes patients. “If you have diabetes and you have a very good lifestyle, your blood sugar goes down and the problem is not as severe anymore. We have taken random tests and found that if you have a very good lifestyle your blood sugar can be as low as when you take medication,” Mr. van Pelt said. … “We want to cover more health centers, but we also depend on the government to adopt this as a national strategy,” he said.
Denise Hruby
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/diabetes-on-rise-due-to-unhealthy-lifestyles-47805/
