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17pc population in UAE suffering from diabetes

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DUBAI - As many as 17 per cent of the total population in the country are suffering from diabetes and there has been a steady annual two-per-cent increase in the number of children with diabetes over the past five years.

Published: Sat 26 Apr 2008, 6:50 PM

Updated: Sun 5 Apr 2015, 4:58 PM

  • By
  • Lily B. Libo-on (Staff Reporter)

The International Diabetes Federation has ranked UAE No. 2 among the countries where diabetes is rampant for the last three years.

This glaring statistics was disclosed by Dr Amel B. El Tayeb, consultant physician and endocrinologist at the Diabetes and Endocrine Centre, yesterday at the Women's Healthcare Exhibition at the Zabeel Hall which ended on April 26.

He said that children normally get Type-1 diabetes but the children in the UAE are also affected with Type-2 diabetes, which is usually found in adults.

"The diabetes in children," he added, "is always related to obesity, which can be controlled by regulating the children's eating habits."

Dr El Tayeb said that although diabetes is affecting men and women equally in the country, the prevalence of diabetes among women is of more serious concern.

According to him, women are protected by their monthly menstruation cycle and the estrogen their bodies are producing. "But, when women with diabetes are no longer having monthly periods, they start losing estrogen and run the risk of getting complications like heart attacks."

Diabetes cannot be cured, but it can be prevented, he added.

He recommended that those exposed to a stressful life, particularly obese men and women, should exercise regularly, care about the food they take in everyday, reduce intake of carbohydrates by eating properly and reduce their weight.



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