Ludhiana, June 24
A two-day mega "Diabetes Expo", the first of its kind show on creating awareness and facilitating management of the disease, concluded at SPS Apollo Hospitals here today. An estimated 2,500 persons visited the event which focused on the latest devices for control of diabetes, dietary counselling and footwear for diabetics.

Dr Gurpreet Singh and Dr Ramanbeer Singh, consultant endocrinologists at the hospital, saw 42 glucometers, 50 digital thermometers and 60 prick pens being distributed among the visitors through lucky draws.

"There is an urgent need to create awareness about the side effects of diabetes as a large number of people suffering from this disease often tend to ignore the dangerous consequences like heart attack, stroke and kidney failure," said Dr Gurpreet Singh.

According to a report released by the department of endocrinology and dietetics, of some 2,000 plus diabetics interviewed at the expo, just about 33 per cent were found to be monitoring their blood sugar regularly, while the remaining were not doing it on a regular basis.

Some patients had got their blood sugar levels checked only two or three times during the past one year. Only 35 per cent had their cholesterol levels within the normal range while more than 54 per cent were having high blood pressure.

According to Dr Ramanbeer Singh, the failure to monitor the blood sugar levels regularly led to various complications and risk of having a heart attack, a stroke or adverse impact on the kidneys. "Diabetics having high cholesterol and triglyceride run a greater risk of being afflicted with several life-threatening complications. Worse still, a majority of the victims were not going for regular exercises and at the same time having no dietary control. Their bad cholesterol (LDL) was found to be on a higher side and they were reluctant to take medicine to lower the level of bad cholesterol."

It was observed that those who have only recently developed diabetes were regularly monitoring their sugar levels while the old patients were irregular in this exercise. The reasons given by patients for not doing regular monitoring of blood sugar levels included high prices, outdated or non-working glucometers at home.

Dr Gurpreet Singh said various studies had predicted that India was heading towards becoming the world capital of diabetes and urgent efforts, including lowering of taxes and duties on medicines and equipment, used for management of the disease, were required immediately both at the central and state levels.

Doraha, June 24
In order to overcome the inhibitions of morbidly obese in seeking social, medical and psychological help, a bariatric support group has been launched at Sidhu Hospital here.

Inaugurating the group, Dr V.K. Sharma, chief cardiothoracic surgeon, Hero DMC Heart Institute, Ludhiana, appreciated the dedicated weight loss programme at the hospital and the multi-disciplinary approach adopted by it. In his inaugural address, Dr Sharma said the complex problem of obesity, which involves almost all other systems of the body leads to a much shorter life span. Being himself a renowned cardiothoracic surgeon, he disclosed that in most of his patients, especially from Punjab the cause of heart disease could be traced to obesity.

At the inaugural meeting of the group, Dr Gurdip Singh Sidhu, director and chief of surgery, said that an obese person was traumatised by sneers and jeers. The person needed to be treated with respect rather than being treated as an object of amusement.

Explaining about bariatric surgery, Dr Sidhu said that there are two commonly performed bariatric surgery operations-gastric banding and gastric bypass. In gastric banding, an inflatable band is placed around the upper part of stomach, which regulates the emptying of stomach and reduces appetite. In gastric bypass, the patient's stomach is made smaller by using surgical staples. The smaller stomach is connected directly to the middle portion of the intestine. Thus, the rest of the stomach and the upper portion of the small intestine is bypassed. Patient feels full more quickly than when the stomach is of original size, which reduces the amount of food intake and bypassing part of the intestine results in fewer calories being absorbed which leads to weight loss. Weight loss is permanent in both the procedures. He said that most of the co-morbidities like diabetes, hypertension arthritis, and sleep apnea etc, associated with obesity are also reversible once obesity is brought under control with bariatric surgery. — OC