Niger Delta has 9.8 percent diabetes burden – MWAN

Tina Amanda

In commemoration of the World Diabetes Day, Rivers people have been urged to engage in a one hundred and fifty minutes of physical activities every week, as statistics has shown that one out of ten people is likely to be diabetic.

The state President of Medical Women Association of Nigeria, MWAN, Dr Vethy Agala, who stated this during a diabetes awareness walk, said there is a 9.8 per cent diabetes burden in the South-South region.

According to her, diabetes comes with severe complications and symptoms such as kidney failure, stroke, excessive urine, eye problem.

She stressed that early screening and testing, exercise, cutting down on alcohol intake, eating healthy can help prevent type two diabetes.

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“Typically, diabetes have three cardinal features. First is urinating too much which is called polyuria. When one urinates excessively and at night, waking up three to four times to urinate. Second is excessive thirst, the urge to drink a lot of water. The more you urinate, the more you want to drink water. Third, the urge to eat, you eating so much yet one’s weight is not increasing, that is diabetes.

“Diabetes affect the eyes, diabetes reduces wound healing, you find people with wounds and it is not healing. We are told that diabetes is the singular most common cause of non-traumatic amputation, such as cutting someone’s limb.

“Diabetes is something we need to work on, it is something we need to prevent by the way we eat, our lifestyle, taking a walk, engaging in physical activities. Diabetes is becoming a challenge as any family members can come down with the disease”

Also speaking, obstetrician-gynaecologist at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Dr Rosemary Ogu, said diabetes in pregnancy is a big risk factor for poor outcomes which may result to the death of a baby during childbirth and urging pregnant women to ensure they screen for gestational diabetes.

“As Medical Women Rivers State, we have screened over twenty-five thousand pregnant women for gestational diabetes in forty-two communities in the state. If a woman has diabetes while pregnant, it means she could have a baby that would die, a baby that would have diabetes in future or she herself coming down with diabetes in future.

“Every pregnant woman is supposed to be screened for diabetes, children can have diabetes because they have a defective Gene, or for the fact that their mother had diabetes or it is something that just happened.

“Diabetes does not respect anyone. Whether you are a child or an adult, you can have diabetes. The important thing is to know, detect take steps to prevent diabetes and its complications because it is the complications that will kill, not diabetes”