Nagpur Diabetic Association helps understand disease better

 NAGPUR: Last week, the member states of World Health Organization designed the first-ever framework on prevention of non communicable diseases that have

emerged as the biggest killers in recent years, including diabetes. The city chapter of Diabetic Association of India (DAI), meanwhile, completed a year of maintaining a database of diabetes patients not just from the city but also from the region.

The database that is known as 'e-registry' is the first attempt at compiling a regional patient registry, though several cities have such databases. The registry will help the doctors spot the trends and so in better management of the disease among the patients from the region. So far, many doctors from the city have been contributing towards this compilation by sharing the medical records of their patients but the DAI officials wish for more doctors, even those from other cities of Vidarbha to contribute. Raising awareness, providing better avenues for research in the field, collaborating with other organizations as well as and sensitizing people about the needs of a diabetic person are also on the list of priority tasks for DAI Nagpur.

"Even if the name of the patient is not shared, the characteristics, nature and prevalence of the disease would help us study patterns in the city and region. More than 3,000 patients have already been registered with us," said Dr Shailesh Pitale, former president of DAI Nagpur, who was the brain behind the concept. He said collecting such information of patients had been a long-standing idea. The idea came after Dr V Mohan from Chennai presented a detailed profile of the diabetic population of his city, complete with grading according to their income group, ages, living standards and the like.

"Several questions like specific problems of the diabetics from the region, average age of onset, male-female ratio, associated conditions like hypertension or cholesterol, medicines that are more effective, pattern of treatment can be answered through the registry data. For such databases, we require as many contributors as possible. A bigger patient pool helps a more scientific study," said Dr Pitale.

"Uptil now, we have been able to derive that rural areas have 4% people suffering from diabetes while urban population has 14% incidence of the disease. Prevalence is higher among the high income group because of intake of high calorie food that gets converted to fat and than to glucose," said the present president of city DAI Dr Shankar Khobragade. Knowing the etiological cause of a disease would helps in its prevention too, he said. "In fact, in cases of diseases like HIV and TB this is exactly what happened. We can save our next generation from diabetes with the registry data," he added.

DAI secretary Dr Prajakta Deshmukh said the data will also help doctors manage diabetics better. "Also, a diabetes patient can get himself registered with us, too. Such patients require monitoring the status of their vital organs regularly. General physicians, gynaecologists and paediatricians, who are generally the first contact points of the patients should consider contributing to the registry," he said. Doctors or patients wishing to contribute can contact DAI office bearers, he added.