Why are Cases of Diabetes Going Undiagnosed in the UAE?

A health organisation has recently released figures that show UAE residents are receiving a diagnosis of diabetes between 11 and 19 years earlier than the worldwide average. According to International Diabetic Federation (IDF), on a global scale, the highest population of diabetics falls into the 55 to 59 range, but in the UAE this spike falls in the 40 to 44-year-olds.

Leonor Guariguata, an IDF biostatistician, explained, ‘The younger distribution is a reflection of a rapidly developing epidemic where younger and younger people are experiencing radical changes in lifestyle – poor diet and low physical activity. These combined with a low awareness of diabetes risk will inevitably lead to a rapid pace of development for the disease.’

The UAE is 11^th in the world for the disease, as almost 19% of the population’s wellbeing is affected by diabetes, according to the Diabetes 2012 Atlas Update. The disease has hit Kuwait wellness hardest, with a rate of 23.9%, followed by Saudi Arabia at 23.4%, Qatar 23.3%, and Bahrain 22.4%. In the UAE, there are 827,000 people between the ages of 20 and 79 with diabetes in the UAE, and nearly 39% of those, (322,000) are undiagnosed.

Guariguata noted, ‘Studies this year have shown diabetes that develops in adolescence progresses more rapidly and is more difficult to treat, meaning unless prevention starts early the situation will only get worse.’ Dr Abdul Jabbar, an endocrinologist at Medcare Hospital, added, ‘Before, it mostly appeared in people aged 50 and over. Now I’m beginning to see many younger patients.’

According to Salah Al Badawi, director of the National Project for Control of Diabetes at the Ministry of Health, the figures reflect an ongoing trend: ‘It’s the result of the rapid urbanisation that took over in most of the countries in the region, which [exposed] people in the population to fast food and made them prone to obesity,’ he said. ‘People in the region don’t eat healthily, they smoke and they lack physical activity. All these are risk factors to diabetes.’

However, Jesper Hoiland, global head of emerging markets for Novo Nordisk, a healthcare company based in Denmark that focuses on care for diabetics, believes a contributing factor is the prevalence of diabetes in certain races and ethnicities. He commented, ‘We are seeing many people in the Middle East developing diabetes when they have a BMI [body mass index] of perhaps 23 to 25. In the western world it usually appears when BMI is higher, perhaps around 27 to 30.’