SHILLONG: The 21st Annual Conference of North Eastern Diabetes Society (NEDSCON) will be held in Guwahati from November 4- 6. This was informed at a press meet here on Tuesday. NEDSCON 2016 to be held at Radission Blu, Guwahati will have A. Tahrani (UK, Birmingham), Meredith Hawkins (USA), Gayatri Goswami (USA) among others as guest speakers.
During the 3 days conference there will be discussions on diabetic foot workshop, nutritional factors, environmental factors, diabetes among the younger generations, organizing diabetes care in poor, weight management in an overweight diabetic besides other discussions. Diabetes, once known as a disease that affects the affluent society has now emerged as a cause of concern for medical practitioners and researchers as developing countries are presently confronted with the global epidemic of the disease.
Describing diabetes as a major epidemic, Hawkins said, “India is an important part of the world for diabetes. Diabetes is increasing at an exponential rate and we have a global problem of about 434 million people with diabetes presently and if the trend continues, we will have over 500 million people with diabetes in the next 10 years. That would be one thing if diabetes were a benign condition but we are aware that this is a complicated and a devastating disease.” Stating that she is interested in the global side of diabetes, she said, “Eighty to ninety per cent of new cases of diabetes are occurring in low and middle income countries and this is a real paradigm shift because until recently we thought it was a disease of affluence.”
Comparing the USA and India, she said, “We notice here that the younger patients tend to be leaner relative to what we are use to treating back home.” Highlighting more on the disease, she said, “There is a phase called pre-diabetes which starts way ahead of the diabetic phase and a lot of disturbance goes on during the period.” When asked about the prevalence of diabetes amongst children, Tahrani said that his youngest patient was a 15-year-old. Later, P.L. Dkhar, general secretary of Meghalaya Diabetes Association (MDA) informed that on account of World Diabetes Day, Nazareth hospital, North Eastern Diabetes Society and MDA will conduct a free diabetes detection camp on November 13 at Nazareth Hospital and Gurudwara, Bomfyle road.