PANJIM, JAN 19
After a population-based pilot study of 8,800 people conducted by Novo Nordisk Education Foundation-Bangalore revealed a high number of diabetes cases in Goa, another study conducted by Prof and Head of Pathology Department Goa Medical College Dr Wiseman Pinto goes on to assert this fact further.
In the systematic study carried out by Dr Wiseman over a period of 32 months between 2005 and 2008, 774 demises that occurred at GMC were registered as deaths due to diabetes. These 744 involved 240 females and 504 males asserting the fact that more men die of diabetes than women.
The observations of Dr Wiseman revealed that more people in the age group of 50 to 69 died of the disease considered as a silent killer like hypertension. Out of the 774, 462 (i.e 62.10%) were from this age group.
The other groups where people died of the disease include 20 to 29 (4 Nos), 30 to 39 (17 Nos), 40 to 49 (77 Nos), 70 to 79 (146 Nos), 80 to 89 (32 Nos) and 90 to 100 (6 Nos).
The youngest patient was a 23-year-old male who died of diabetes mellitus with ketoacidosis and the eldest to have expired of the disease were a 95-year-old male and a female. While the male died of gangrene of the foot, the female expired after suffering from diabetes mellitus with cerebrovascular accident (CVA).
The study states that majority of the patients died of heart problems caused by diabetes. Kidney failure and infections were the other two major complications observed in the dying patients.
290 (i.e 26.75%) of the 774 cases were related to heart problems like ischemic heart disease (IHD) and myocardial infarction, 207 (19.10%) were due to chronic renal failure (CRF) and 202 on account of infections caused due to the disease.
Other deaths were caused due to CVA (156 Nos), intracranial bleeding (43 Nos), gangrene (27 Nos), foot ulcers and cellulitis (38 Nos) and ketoacidosis (48 Nos). Seventy-three of the deaths from the 774 were due to diabetes along with other complications like alcoholic liver disease (24 Nos), tuberculosis (33 Nos), HIV (2 Nos), cancer (6 Nos) and retinopathy (3 Nos), which causes blindness.
Dr Wiseman observes the cases of diabetes are on the rise and people need to be more pro-active as far as preventive measures like getting themselves scanned are concerned because anybody today could be suffering from the disease.
