46 lakh people to be screened for diabetes

BHUBANESWAR: Amid growing concern over increasing incidence of diabetes, the state government has decided to screen around 46 lakh people in 10 districts this year. These are Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Khurda, Sambalpur, Rayagada, Mayurbhanj, Kalahandi, Sundargarh and Angul. 

Health minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak said people above 30 years will be screened in 10 districts. Besides, all pregnant women, tuberculosis patients and HIV positive individuals irrespective of age will also be examined for diabetes, as chances of the disease among them is higher, he said. Odisha doesn't have any comprehensive data on the prevalence of diabetic population. 

Nayak said the screening would be part of the central-sponsored National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular diseases and Stroke (NPCDCS) in these districts. "Those identified with diabetes will be treated for free," he said. 

During a pilot project in five districts of Nabarangpur, Malkangiri, Balangir, Nuapada and Koraput, the government screened 29 lakh people above 30 years age group in 2013-14. About 6% to 7% of them were found to be diabetic. 

According to a 1990 study in coastal Odisha, prevalence of was 0.8%. At the current 7%, it has gone up by 700 times in 20 years. Health workers and paramedical staff would be trained in using glucometers and glucostrips for screening at the sub-centres of district headquarter hospitals, the minister said. 

Diabetes has been emerging as a major public health problem. "Going by prevalence in the five surveyed districts, we apprehend over 3 lakh diabetes cases would be detected during the upcoming screening programme in the 10 districts," said state nodal officer, NPCDCS P K B Patnaik. 

The main reason for increasing incidence of diabetes in rural areas of the state may be attributed to the transition of people from being very poor to relatively well off with assured meals, said noted diabetologist Alok Kanungo. "When an underfed belly starts getting daily meals, s/he has chances of diabetes," Kanungo said, adding for urban areas the causes are sedentary lifestyle. 

Director, Regional Medical Research Centre Santanu Kar said only a statewide survey would reveal the exact disease burden though it appears it has being emerging as a big cause of mortality and morbidity.

Drug reverses vision loss caused by diabetes

New York, Feb 19 (IANS): A prescription drug commonly used to treat age-related vision loss also reverses vision loss caused by diabetes, says a study led by an Indian-origin physician.

The drug, Ranibizumab is manufactured and marketed by US-based Genentech Inc. under the trade name Lucentis.

"We found that Ranibizumab can save the sight of thousands of working-age individuals suffering from diabetic eye disease, as standard treatments such as laser are not as effective," said lead author Rohit Varma, director of the University of Southern California (USC) Eye Institute.

Diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema are the leading causes of vision loss in working-age adults in the United States, according to the National Eye Institute.

Varma's team developed a population-based model that suggests that administering 0.3 milligrams of ranibizumab every four weeks to patients with diabetic macular edema would reduce the number of cases of vision impairment by 45 percent, or 5,134 individuals, and the number of cases of legal blindness by 75 percent, or 1,275 individuals.

The model was based on the approximately 37,000 adults with diabetic macular edema in the US for whom ranibizumab treatment could be used.

The study supported in part by Genentech Inc appeared in the online edition of the journal Ophthalmology.

Diabetes treatment should take into local factors, says study

Washington: The factors behind the prevalence of diabetes may be affected by the geography and hence the prevention and treatment should be based on the local factors, said a study.

"In one region of the US, poverty and lower education outcomes are more predictive of higher diabetes prevalence, and in other regions, physical inactivity and obesity are more predictive," said lead author J. Aaron Hipp, assistant professor from Washington University's Brown School in the US.

The study suggests that approaches to combating the disease should be localised.

They discovered that results varied by region. Poverty levels and inactivity were associated with diabetes, but only in some areas. The percentage of the population cycling or walking to work correlated with lower prevalence of diabetes in most counties, but not in some rural areas of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota.Hipp and co-author Nishesh Chalise analysed county data from the US Census Bureau and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to find attributes associated with diabetes.

"Given this clustering of predictors of diabetes prevalence, and knowing the effect of the predictors we used in our study, counties, states and regions should be able to better target the most common predictors of diabetes in their more local area," Hipp added.

The study was published in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease.

Scientists identify biological clock to predict longivity

A group of scientists has identified a biological clock that could help predict how long we live, according to a study.

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh in collaboration with researchers in Australia and the US studied chemical changes to DNA to establish an individual's biological age which they compared with their actual age, the Mirror reported Friday.

The results showed that people with biological age greater than their true age were more likely to die sooner than those whose biological and actual ages were the same.

Four independent studies tracked the lives of almost 5,000 older people for up to 14 years.

Each person's biological age was measured from a blood sample at the outset and participants were followed up throughout the study.

Researchers found that the link between having a faster-running biological clock and early death held true -- even after considering factors like smoking, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

"This new research increases our understanding of longevity and healthy ageing," said the study's lead author Ian Deary from the University of Edinburgh's Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology.

The researchers measured each person's biological age by studying a chemical modification to DNA, known as methylation, which can affect many genes and occur throughout a person's life.