Activities

October 13, 2007: Diabetes and Diet

IDeAS-Nepal organized its first health-related program involving public participation on October 13, 2007 (2064/06/26, saturday). It was a one-day long interaction program about "diabetes and diet". Diabetes is a chronic devastating disease of insidious onset which has adverse effects on multiple organ systems of our body. Our popular saying "prevention is better than cure" has a very high value in the context of diabetes because it is sometimes very difficult to get control of diabetes and needs multidisciplinary approach. So, keeping the importance of public awareness about this preventable and controllable disease in mind, IDeAS-Nepal set out to form a platform where general laymen and diabetics have an opportunity to interact with technical experties about this disease.

Under the co-ordination of Dr. Ganendra Bhakta Raya, one of our executive members, the program was held in Prabhat secondary school, Byasi, Bhaktapur. Forty-one local men and women, aged 20 to 83, took active participation in the interaction program. Three chief speakers and two guest speakers talked about various important aspects of diabetes and also answered queries from the participants. Dr. Ganendra Bhakta Raya from TU Teaching Hospial spoke about introduction and pathophysiology of diabetes. He highlighted the important facts about the normal body functions and abnormality in diabetes. Mr. Bal Krishna Awal, Medical Lab Technologist, TUTH and the vice-president of IDeAS-Nepal, shed light upon various lab procedures and normal ranges of lab values regarding diabetes. Mrs. Rashmi Shrestha, a dietecian in National Kidney Center, Kathmandu and the chief speaker of the program, talked about the facts and myths about dietary habits in the context of diatbetes. She interacted with the participants about 'what to eat' and 'how to eat' in order to prevent and control diabetes. Guest speaker Mr. Ratna Gopal Datheputhe (Dhulikhel hospital), also spoke about the logical interpretation of varioius laboratory values. Another guest speaker, senior optometrist Mr. Gauri Shrestha from TUTH talked about how our eyes are affected by diabetes and about the ways to prevent these effects. With the tools of audio-visual multimedia, the program was made interesting which was helpful to encite participants' curiosity about the disease. Fasting blood glucose levels of all the participants were estimated in the program. They were also offered non-diabetic refreshments. In the end, Mr. Punya Ram Prajapati "Sandesh", the president of IDeAS-Nepal, spoke about the organization, its main objectives and the significance such interaction programs.

The program concluded with encouraging feedbacks. Mr. Nuchhe Bahadur, one of the participants took this program to be very informative and emphasized on conducting such programs on regular basis. Another participant, Mr. Gopal Krishna Yakami said that topics on diabetic diet and effects on eyes, brain and kidneys were very usuful for his life.