Health experts in the Kingdom are calling out a warning cry of diabetes turning into an epidemic that kills Saudi society. Books - Abdullah Al-Talha: A number of senior consultants and doctors in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia issued a resounding warning cry of the need to pay attention to the phenomenon of the spread of diabetes in various segments and circles in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at unprecedented rates. This is in a number of working papers presented by the medical delegation that recently represented the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at the twelfth annual Arab Conference on Diabetes in Cairo, which was attended by more than three thousand doctors and consultants from various Arab countries. In this context, Dr. Ashraf Abdul Qayyum Amir, Assistant Director of Health Affairs for Primary Health Care at the Ministry of Health in Makkah Al-Mukarramah Region - and one of the members of the Saudi delegation participating in the conference - confirmed that diabetes is spreading in a frightening manner within the Saudi society according to statistics and figures, as the incidence of the disease has increased In the last ten years in the Kingdom, only from 17 to 25 percent, meaning that one out of every four people suffers from diabetes, which indicates that the disease has entered the stage of an epidemic that cannot be tolerated, otherwise it will consume a lot of the capabilities of this nation financially and humanly. He added that the danger of diabetes lies in the fact that it is a system or syndrome of serious health complications and ailments such as high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, heart disease, retinopathy problems, kidney problems, peripheral nerve inflammation, and diabetic foot problems that may reach the point of gangrene. And ultimately lead to amputation of the limbs. As for the most important causes of the disease, Dr. Abdul Gayoom says that there are several risk factors that lead to diabetes, some of which can be controlled, such as changing food habits and replacing them with wrong eating habits that have become common in recent years, and the spread of inactive lifestyle and lack of physical effort in addition to psychological tension and the tremendous stress that We are exposed to it daily, and there are other risk factors that cannot be controlled, such as genetic factors that play an important role in this disease. Dr. Abdul Qayyum urged doctors to deal more seriously and decisively with diabetes, stressing the importance of concerted efforts by all parties to stop the spread of diabetes by increasing awareness and health education for the patient and the doctor alike.
Establishing sick rehabilitation centers
For his part, Professor Dr. Majid Hamzah, Professor of Neurology at the University of Virginia and Director of the American National Program for Pain Management and Director of the Interventional Treatment of Spinal Pain Unit, reviewed the successful experience of the United States of America in reducing the spread of diabetes in the American society, by dealing with him from an economic perspective in the first place The first, as the focus in the past was on dealing with the disease at the last level, which is the establishment of centers to rehabilitate patients and help them resume their role in society, but they realized that this method costs a lot, and then the thought was to move to the second level, which is the attempt to discover Early disease and prevention and dealing with pre-diabetes cases prevalent in adolescence, which contributed to saving a lot of effort and money. Professor Hamzah revealed that treating peripheral nerve pain, a complication of diabetes, costs the United States more than $ 11 billion annually, not to mention the indirect economic losses associated with absenteeism from work due to these pains. As for the latest methods of treating peripheral nerve pain caused by diabetes, Professor Hamzah explained that the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs that are used in the treatment of most other regular pain have proven to be ineffective in treating diabetic nerve pain, adding that the number of drugs currently available for this type of pain does not exceed fingers. One hand, the emergence of the drug Pregabalin or Lyrica, which has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and recommended by many prestigious health associations and bodies for its use, has brought about a huge boom in treatment methods, which contributed to finding an effective solution to this problem.
Vision loss and blindness
Dr. Abdul-Rahman Al-Maghamsi, a consultant endocrinologist and diabetes and head of the internal medicine department at King Khalid Eye Hospital, shed light on some facts that explain the seriousness of diabetes, as he explained that diabetes is the number one cause of vision loss and blindness worldwide, and that 8 out of every 10 people Those who experience heart attacks and attacks are diabetics, while more than 50 percent of those who suffer from kidney failure are diabetics. Dr. Al-Maghamsi added that the solution does not lie in investing in opening advanced medical centers as much as in paying attention to early dealing with diabetes, as it is the cause of most health problems. Dr. Al-Maghamsi believes that the priority is to establish specialized centers that provide integrated services to deal with diabetes, starting with spreading health and nutritional education for patients and doctors, investigating pre-diabetes cases and ending with providing successful treatment to patients. Dr. Ayman Muhammad Ibrahim, a consultant of internal diseases, called for focusing on nutritional education, especially among children and adolescents, and paying attention to the quality of food provided to them in school canteens to prevent an increase in the number of people with diabetes. And following them up as one of the ways to raise the level of health care in particular and limit diabetes in particular.
