Eating too much fast food can cause diabetes

Eating too much fast food can cause diabetes

JAKARTA (JP): Too much fast food can cause diabetes,
particularly among young people, experts warned this weekend.

Contrary to earlier suggestions that diabetes mellitus
is a hereditary disease, Anita Sapardjiman told a seminar on
Saturday that 95 percent of all diabetes cases found in Indonesia
were caused by poor diets often associated with fast food.

Higher incomes have led to a change in the Indonesian diet and
this has been perpetuated with the arrival of restaurants serving
Korean, Japanese and European dishes, said Anita, a physician by
profession.

"All these combine to form a new diet pattern with higher
carbohydrate and cholesterol content .. which in turn causes an
overweight condition," she said at the one-day seminar on
diabetes and how to deal with it.

Obesity is one of the main causes of diabetes, she added.

The seminar at Hotel Horison, attended by mostly diabetes
patients, was organized by the Indonesia Diabetes Association.

An estimated 3.8 million Indonesians suffer from diabetes, for
which there is no known cure. Current medical knowledge is only
able to control the sugar level of patients.

Experts say the number of sufferers is increasing all the
time, placing a severe burden on the country's medical
facilities. Treatment is costly not only to individual patients
and their families, but also to the government which has to foot
part of the medical bill.

Another speaker, Sumardjono of Pelni Hospital, said diabetes
is especially attacking people in the 35 to 50 years age bracket.

Sumardjono later told The Jakarta Post that diabetes can cause
kidney disorder, which, if not treated through dialysis, could
lead to terminal kidney failure.

Some 1,500 people are currently undergoing the expensive
dialysis treatment, he said.

Many more people have not gone through the process but
"eventually, they will have to take it," he added.

Sumardjono noted that many of the patients who undertake
dialysis treatment are covered by the Askes state health
insurance plan and that last year the government had to spend
approximately Rp 10 billion ($4.6 million) for the treatment.

Sidartawan Soegondo of the Lipid and Diabetes Center at Cipto
Mangunkusumo general hospital said many diabetes patients in
Indonesia discovered their condition late.

"Usually when these people are diagnosed for diabetes, they
have already developed complications," he said, adding that
kidney, eyes, heart and nerves are the organs most often affected
by the complications.

Sidartawan urged diabetes patients to control their sugar
level in order to protect them from complications. "Until a cure
is found, intensive diabetes management is the best way to
prevent complications," he added.

The Indonesia Diabetes Association groups physicians, patients
and also volunteers concerned with the illness. It publishes a
journal called Diabetes and runs a hotline service for patients.

The association plans to organize a "diabetes tea walk" in
Bogor, 30 kilometers south of here this coming Sunday. (05)