12 November 2009
One of the greatest health problems that can result from obesity is the risk of developing diabetes.
A diabetes support group meeting for the community is planned for the day, hosted by the American Hospital Dubai, where patients and families can learn more about general diabetes, nutrition, reading food packaging labels – and carbohydrate counting.
Faced with the choice (and ignore the calories for a moment), what should a diabetic choose to eat — a banana or an apple? Or perhaps a cappuccino or a milkshake?
For a diabetic who understands how to count carbohydrates as a means of managing his/her diabetes, then an apple and a cappuccino should be preferred over a banana and a milkshake. The reason is that the apple and the cappuccino each contains 15g of carbohydrates, whilst the banana has 30g and the milkshake a whopping 90g.
For a diabetic, these choices have potentially serious consequences and this will be on one of the themes of the support group event hosted by the team from the Diabetes Center of Excellence at the American Hospital Dubai. Diabetic patients are invited to the special workshop to learn more about ‘carbohydrate counting’ — the key to the successful nutritional management of diabetes.
Speaking about the community event, Mariam Saleh, Clinical Dietitian at the Diabetes Center of Excellence, explains: “Nutrition is a cornerstone of the management of diabetes. The skill lies in reading and understanding food labels, for packaged foods, and in knowing the carb values for fresh foods and for prepared dishes. Of course, in addition, we also need to ensure that diabetics eat well and enjoy a balanced and healthy diet, so this is another factor to consider when making food choices and means variety rather than staying with a limited range of foods that have easily identifiable carb content.
“We must also take other nutritional factors such as calories and fat content into account, but carbs are the focus for obvious reasons,” adds Mariam Saleh.
“There are no food labelling standards for carbohydrates and so labels can be misleading – especially when you consider snack foods such as biscuits, cereal bars and chocolate, all of which can contain surprisingly high levels of carbohydrates. Then, there are even some foods with zero carbs. The information is generally available on labels and in specialist books and it’s just like learning any other skill.”
According to Dr Bariah Dardari, a Pediatrician at the American Hospital Dubai, diabetes can occur any time, even in the first year of life, although the diagnosis is often delayed in infants and toddlers until the child is very sick because the symptoms at this age are not very specific.
Symptoms include failure to grow or gain weight normally; weight loss with either increased appetite or loss of appetite (more common in the younger child); increased thirst; increased urination (a toilet-trained child may start wetting, and a baby may need more frequent changes); dehydration; severe nappy rash that does not respond to the usual treatment; and persistent vomiting, particularly if it is accompanied by weakness or drowsiness.
“Parents should limit sedentary activity and encourage physical activity and sport,” advises Dr Dardari.
“We recommend that children under the age of 2 years do not watch any television, and are allowed and encouraged to develop enjoyment of outdoor physical activity. Pre-school children should watch less than two hours of television per day and be encouraged to take part in unstructured play, such as running, swimming, throwing and catching. Parents should reduce the amount of transportation by car or stroller as a child gets older, and pre-school children should begin walking tolerable distances with family members.”
