AT A CROSSROADS : Diabetes: The power of wrong choices

What you need to know:

  • According to the deputy Minister for Health, Dr Faustine Ndugulile, at least 13 per cent of Tanzanians suffer from diabetes. That has forced the government to set aside $800,000 for buying insulin drugs for treating diabetes.

Last Wednesday, it was World Diabetes Day, with a clarion call, “eat healthily, be physically active and avoid excessive weight gain.”

According to the deputy Minister for Health, Dr Faustine Ndugulile, at least 13 per cent of Tanzanians suffer from diabetes. That has forced the government to set aside $800,000 for buying insulin drugs for treating diabetes.

The deputy minister was candid that the number of diabetic patients was on the rise, which includes children. The 13 per cent of our population is a massive number. As we thank the government for what it’s doing to help citizens’ manage the incurable disease, we need a lot of soul searching on what must be done at individual and family levels.

Looking at how smoking and alcoholism are associated with diabetes, it is a great reminder that the power of human to self-destruct can never be underestimated. The two “vices” people take them willingly, mostly for leisure, though they become addiction.

World over, cigarettes have labels that they are dangerous to health. Smoking causes diabetes, cancer, heart attacks, strokes, blindness, lower limb amputations among other ailments.

Cigarettes tend to harm the smokers and those around them (passive smokers). Yet some parents smoke near their young children causes them so much harm! Simply it has been said by so many credible researchers that, “cigarettes kill.”

But then, year in and out, the companies selling the poison, they continue to make massive profits as they recruit new smokers as the old ones filters out their lives slowly. To commemorate World Diabetes Day, the World Health Organisation (WHO) was at the forefront of reminding nations what has to be done to avoid diabetes or delay it, is to ensure healthy diet, being physically active, and avoid smoking. Unfortunately, in the name of self-destruction, many people don’t ‘make healthy choices’ so as to “prevent and manage chronic diabetes”. The result is that “the global prevalence of adult diabetes has nearly quadrupled since 1980,” according to WHO.

Mother earth has reached a point where about 1.6 million deaths each year are caused directly by the disease. Apart from smoking, many people take a lot of sugar and fats that we really don’t need. More people in the world are less physically active; ways of living that a recipe for disasters. In every country including Tanzania, diabetes is a major public health problem, with huge economic implications. Medicine for care of people with the condition are often very expensive, not only in the developing countries, but also in the so-called first world.

It’s estimated that about 1 in 11 of the world’s adult population lives with diabetes. It is approximated that almost about half of the people with diabetes are undiagnosed.

Institutions like CCBRT have come out clearly that they are focused “on prevention, treatment, and awareness” That should be the way, for all health institutions. CCBRT has added that, “diabetes can cause glaucoma, cataracts and preventable blindness”.

It’s notable that the World Diabetes Day is commemorated during the birthdate of the person who discovered insulin back in 1891, Frederick Banting. To date, he remains “one of the biggest breakthroughs in medicine.” Without the medicine it would have been a sure death for millions of people suffering diabetes across the world. No wonder he got a Nobel Prize for the discovery.

As we commemorate the day, it’s important that more research about the condition is done. Considering that a number of our population is affected by the condition, we need to develop homegrown solutions to tame the disease. We must all fight to lead a good lifestyle to combat diabetes. Avoid excessive drinking of alcohol and smoking cigarettes. Be physically active. Let us watch our fat and sugar intake!

Saumu Jumanne is an Assistant Lecturer, Dar es Salaam University College of Education (DUCE)