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)