By Carol Aloysius
Diabetes was known as a disease of the old in the recent past when people led leisurely lives in unpolluted environment. At that time, they grew their own food in carefully tended home gardens, more often ate rice and maize planted in their fields, pounding it into flour to make roti, hoppers and string hoppers. They washed it down with a cup of plain tea and a piece of kitul jaggery, or a cup of hot Kola Kenda (gruel) made with leaves taken from their gardens.
Then, the demographic change came. Rural youth left their Maha Gederas for lucrative jobs and settled down in crowded towns and cities. Life became a frenzied rat race with working men and women rushing to workplaces to beat the clock. Housewives stopped cooking nutritious meals and instead started dishing out instant meals for children rushing to school. Children accustomed to having their meals from take away outlets, or school canteens.
The end result was a marked rise in diabetes among both young and the old. A cross sectional study in 2005 and 2006 revealed overall urban pre-diabetes in adults was higher than rural pre-diabetes and 36% diabetes did not even know they had the disease. Recent studies showed diabetes in children was also on the increase and the children aged 10 to 12 years were in the pre-diabetic stage.
The Nation met Dr. Pujitha Wickramasinghe, Senior Lecturer in Paediatrics, University of Colombo and Consultant Paediatrician, Lady Ridgeway Hospital to get to the bottom of the issue.
Read full article: http://www.nation.lk/2011/11/13/eyefea2.htm
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