Awareness, home-cooking may help prevent diabetes

Despite medical breakthroughs, there is no herbal plant or effective remedy for diabetes yet other than awareness and home-cooked meals.

In a forum on diabetes awareness conducted by the Department of Health-7 yesterday at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center, it was learned that though diabetes has no effective remedy yet, it can best be prevented through awareness and home-cooking which includes the observance of healthy, balanced meal composed of one-fourth serving of carbohydrates food group, one-fourth mantekilya (butter), and the rest for vegetables and a serving of fruit.

The main panelist, Dr. Marian Denopol, who serves as coordinator of the diabetes program at the VSMMC, urges the public to join hands in controlling the ailment by going back to the basics.

“As there is no plant or effective remedy yet for diabetes, let us start basically at home by resorting again to home-cooking and by looking after the meals of the family,” she said.

Also, diabetics should avoid salty foods; otherwise, this would aggravate more their condition, she added.

In line with this, a “Healthy Cooking for Diabetics” activity will be carried out at the Ayala Activity Center on August 10 with Nestle Philippines.

Denopol, during the forum, enumerated the causes of the ailment, signs and symptoms, prevention and other related information, and cited an Asia Pulse survey which has placed the country on fourth spot worldwide in diabetes incidence.

She tackled on how grave the problem of diabetes is in the country today, especially in Cebu and how the Filipino diet can become a risk factor in developing diabetes.

She quoted from the study that diabetes is a “silent killer” which could occur from infancy or the juvenile group to adulthood and disclosed that at VSMMC, the youngest diabetic patient is around six years old while the oldest is 95 years old.

Diabetes, accordingly, if way beyond control largely affects the heart, small and big blood vessels, nerves, kidneys and the eyes. “It can affect even the tip of your hair and your toe,” Denopol said.

Symptoms include excessive urine production, a condition called polyuria; compensatory thirst and increased fluid intake or polydipsia, and the abnormal craving for food or polyphabia. Other minor symptoms include itchiness, decrease in sexual urge, and unexplained weight loss.

The diabetes awareness forum, she said, will be conducted all over the country as most hospitals nationwide already have wellness clinics. — Niña Chrismae G. Sumacot/MEEV