The Saudi Struggle with Diabetes

Posted on Feb 06, 2013 by Ailee Slater (G+)

If you have ever driven a car, or turned on a stove, chances are that the gas came from the Gulf Cooperation Council. Encompassing six nations (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia ), the Gulf Cooperation Council or GCC accounts for 45 percent of global proven oil reserves, and 20 percent of the world's gas. With such a huge amount of natural resources, and exploration of these supplies only beginning in the last half of the twentieth century, it is no surprise that within the last two decades, GCC countries have seen great change - in business, in socio economic status, and in health care.

The business of oil has brought plenty of positive health care changes; malnutrition is becoming a thing of the past, GCC populations are living longer than ever. Infant mortality is decreasing every year, and many GCC governments are working with investors to increase the availability of new health care and health insurance opportunities. A 2012 Gallup poll found that the majority of nationals and expats living in a GCC country were quite satisfied with the access and quality of health care available in their city, but unfortunately, social and economic improvements in the GCC have also brought about one glaring and ugly health care side effect - diabetes.

Most research ranks Saudi Arabia as having the third-highest prevalence of diabetes in the world. Around 20 percent of the population in Saudi Arabia has been diagnosed with the disease, and public health care professionals worry that many more people may be unknowingly living with it. One vocal supporter of raising diabetes awareness, Dr. Wail Al-Qassim of the Merck Sharp & Dohme Saudi pharmaceutical company, estimates from his research that 5.5 million Saudis will have diabetes by the year 2030, if cases continue to increase as they have during the past few years.

Financially speaking, Dr. Wail Al-Qassim is also concerned about the fact that the Saudi Health system spends around SR $12 billion ($3 billion USD) annually on diabetes care. The World Health Organization estimates that 347 million people across the globe currently suffer from Diabetes. When a person has diabetes, their pancreas does not produce enough insulin and so blood sugar cannot be regulated by the body. High blood sugar can lead to impaired vision, excessive thirst, and problems maintaining weight. Later on, diabetes can result in nerve damage, and serious sores and infections in the feet and skin - so serious, in fact, that amputation may be necessary. Type I diabetes is usually diagnosed by childhood; it is not preventable, and the cause of the disease is not currently known. Type 2 diabetes, however, usually occurs in adults as the result of excess body weight and a lack of physical activity. In Saudi Arabia, 90 percent of those people with diabetes have Type 2. That high prevalence of preventable Type 2 diabetes has convinced most health care professionals and researchers that Saudi Arabia's high diabetes rate is due to changes in lifestyle during the past few decades.

A study published in the American Journal of Nephrology noted the connection between the rise of socio economic status in Saudi Arabia and the increase in average caloric intake per day. In 1995, the average Saudi Arabian ate 85 percent of daily recommended calories. By 2011, however, that caloric intake had increased to 140 percent of recommended calories. Likewise, the Journal of Nephrology study found that in the 1960s, a mere 5 percent of Saudi families owned a car. In 2011, that number was 85 percent. Small surprise then that with such drastic and quick changes in food and daily activity, 15.8 percent of children and nearly a quarter of adults in Saudi Arabia are currently thought to be suffering from obesity.

This high rate of obesity is, of course, a major contributor to the nation's current struggles with diabetes. Another interesting finding of the Journal of Nephrology study involved how diabetes affects Saudi women more than men. Women were found to have consistently higher rates of diabetes when compared to men in the same socio economic and location demographic. In fact, the highest prevalence of diabetes in Saudi Arabia is in urban women aged 51-60; a whopping 49 percent of those women have the disease. Saudi women have come out in support of better fitness resources for women, pointing out that there are few outdoor activities in which women participate, and a lack of gyms for women. Luckily for both women and men, public health officials in Saudi Arabia appear to be well aware of the diabetes issue and working hard to change it. In October 2011, Saudi Minister of Health Dr. Abdullah Bin AbdulAziz Al Rabeeah opened a diabetes center in Riyadh, part of a plan to establish 20 such clinics around the country. This Riyadh center included 22 diabetes consultants and specialists, plus a group of nurses and other administrative staff. The main aims of the center are to help people control the disease on a day-to-day basis, and watch out for accompanying complications such as high blood pressure and eye disease.

The center will also offer training programs to help medical professionals learn more about diabetes, and initiate diabetes awareness education for the wider community. Another important step in addressing the health care needs of citizens with diabetes has been the establishment of academies devoted to foot and limb health. Endorsed by the Saudi Ministry of Health as well as the University of California San Diego, these academies are part of an initiative to understand more about the lower-limb injuries and ulcers that often plague people with diabetes, eventually reducing the rate of foot amputations. With the Saudi government's emphasis upon further development of its national health care system, all signs are positive that the nation's prevalence of diabetes will eventually begin to decrease. With more awareness about healthy lifestyle choices and a medical workforce better educated about the needs of those with diabetes, doctors and public officials alike are hopeful that as Saudi Arabia continues to develop medically, socially and economically, rates of diabetes will inversely decrease.