Southern States - Andhra Pradesh   

Free diabetes camp for kids on Nov. 14

By Our Staff Reporter

KURNOOL Nov. 11. A free diabetes camp for children will be organised by Kamala Diabetes and Cardio Centre here in coordination with Novo Nordisk on November 14 in connection with Children's Day.

Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, K.S. Tirumalachari, retired Additional Director of Medical Education and diabetologist, said diabetes in children was emerging as a major health concern. Handling the disease in children was more difficult than in adults. He said the incidence of diabetes in rural areas was around 4 to 8 per cent while in urban areas it was 14 to 18 per cent. Of them, 5 per cent were children. Most of the children suffered from type-I diabetes while adults suffered from type-II. He said parents should carefully monitor the diabetic children as they were prone to hypoglycaemia after play for longer hours. Similarly, children could not control their food habits and wanted to eat what they liked. The cause of the disease in children was mostly due to viral infection. The auto-immune mechanism attacked the pancreas cells, which resembled the virus. The mistaken identity by the body immune system led to onset of the disease in children. Usually, the imbalance in the body sugar levels could be noticed only after 80 per cent of damage to the pancreas which took five to eight years. The onset of the disease is noticed in children between 10 and 15 years of age. Dr. Tirumalachari said loss of weight, excessive urination and excessive thirst and hunger were some of the symptoms of the disease. Neglect of the disease would lead to retinopathy (loss of vision), neuropathy (damage to nervous system) and nephropathy (impaired functioning of kidney). Dr. Tirumalachari felt that changing life style also contributed to diabetes. Excessive consumption of junk food like bakery products, cool drinks, fatty food and dairy products was spreading the disease. Lack of physical exercise and mental stress caused by urban life style contributed to the disease.

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