Brisk walking 30 min, a day keeps diabetes away

ALLAHABAD: Although since 2009, diabetes education and prevention has been the five-year theme of World Diabetes Day, there is a common myth that if you are diabetic you should cut down sugar if you want to stay fit and healthy. The common tendency to associate diabetes strongly with sugar and hardly anything else reaffirms the need to educate people about this disease that has the potential to wreak havoc with health and wealth.
Talking of this fast growing ailment, Dr Bharat Arora, an expert in the field of diabetes, told TOI that perhaps in no other country is the need for diabetes prevention and education as desperately felt as in India. The country has the dubious distinction of being the diabetes capital of the world with almost 51 million people suffering from the disease and the situation threatens to deteriorate fast with more than 8 percent of the total Indian population projected to be victims in another 20 years. The International Diabetic Federation (IDF) has already warned that increasing economic growth was likely to raise diabetes prevalence in India beyond estimates. It warns that apart from losing billions in lost productivity, India will be spending about 125 billion rupees annually on diabetes control measures by 2010.
Likewise, S I Rizvi, associate professor at the department of biochemistry, Allahabad University said diabetes is rapidly becoming the epidemic of 21st century as it accounts for 3.8 million deaths per year globally. Remarkably, the team led by Rizvi research group is engaged in studying the alterations that take place in red blood cells of diabetic patients and whether plant flavonoids have any beneficial effects. His team have for the first time identified four bio-markers, analysis of which is a perfect symptom to tell whether a diabetic patient is vulnerable to getting affected by the late complications of diabetes.
There are mainly two types of diabetes, Type 1, wherein the body does not produce any insulin which is required to process glucose in the blood, because of which the patients usually need regular insulin injections. In Type 2 diabetes, which is more common and normally affects people above the age of 35 years, insulin is produced but body cells do not make use of it, said Dr Arora. Depending on your family history and the symptoms you experience, if any, it is a good idea to ask your doctor about testing for diabetes, suggested the doctor. Brisk walking for 30 minutes every day reduces the risk of diabetes by almost 40 percent, he added.