Pul bats for adopting healthy lifestyle

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT

ITAGAR, April 29: Aruchal Pradesh Chief Minister Kalikho Pul on Thursday released the book, “ICMR-INdia DIAbetes (INDIAB) Study – Aruchal Pradesh amidst the presence of Dr Moji Jini, Director of Health Services, Dr Moromor Lego, Director of Family Welfare, P N Thungon, Mission Director NHM among other officers of the Health & Family Welfare Depar tment at his office. While releasing the book, Chief Minister said that the study had thrown lights on the health burden due to diabetes in Aruchal Pradesh and it would help plan measures for both control and prevention of diabetes in the State where the study is completed, an official report said here today. Pul advised the people of the State to have healthy life style of good nutrition, exercise and fitness through meditation, yoga and prayam to prevent and overcome the mece of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) citing that the present change of lifestyle by the people in both urban and rural due to modern way of life and technologies have greatly impacted on the general health of the people with the rising trend of NCDs like diabetes, hypertension, cancer and stroke which have become chronic and expensive for high cost treatments and magement by the individual/family.

After briefly going through the study, Pul said that there was a need for having awareness programme to improve the knowledge about diabetes and its complications among the general population.

As the study shows that Aruchal Pradesh has 5.2 per cent of overall weighted prevalence of diabetes and 12.8 per cent of prediabetes. Nearly 76.3 per cent of the urban residents and 60.5 per cent of the rural residents in Aruchal Pradesh said that they knew about a condition called diabetes.

One of the important findings identified through this study is the significant gap in the knowledge level of diabetes and its related complications among the general population and self reported diabetic subjects. Overall 76.1 per cent of self reported diabetic subjects said that diabetes can affect other body organs and only 31.2 per cent of general population said that diabetes can affect other body organs.

It was revealed that the prevalence of hypertension and metallic syndrome were also higher in urban areas compared to rural areas whereas prevalence of dyslipidemia is higher in rural areas .In terms of glycemic control, rural areas of Aruchal Pradesh has poorer glycemic compared to urban areas, the report added.