Commemorating World Diabetes Day, Time To Prevent Regularly Checking Blood Sugar

Diabetes Illustration (Pexels/Nataliya Vaitkevich)

JAKARTA - Today, Thursday, November 14, 2024, World Diabetes Day is celebrated, with the theme Diabetes and Well-Being or Diabetes and Welfare.

Launching the World Health Organization (WHO) page, World Diabetes Day provides an opportunity to raise awareness about diabetes as a critical global public health problem. This is a global problem that must be fought together, including in Indonesia.

In 2021, Indonesia will be ranked fifth in the world with the most diabetes sufferers. In 2023, the Indonesian Ministry of Health recorded that the prevalence of diabetes mellitus for people over 15 years of age was 11.7 percent, up from the previous year 10.9 percent.

Internal Medicine Specialist & Travel Health Expert Eka Hospital BSD, dr. Rudy Kurniawan, Sp.PD, MM, MARS, Dip.TH, Dip.SN, DCD, FRSPH, said that increasing diabetes patients in Indonesia from year to year was influenced by two factors. Starting from an unhealthy lifestyle, to increasing public awareness to do health checks.

There are two phenomena, the first is lifestyle. Eating patterns that tend to be instantaneous, people are also lazy to move, yes, nothing now in big cities especially. So many sit down, less activity," said Doctor Rudy Kurniawan when met in the Serpong area, Tangerang, on Tuesday, November 12, 2024.

The second is due to a better diagnostic process. In the past, people had no complaints, they wouldn't check. Now people are more aware, so they can be caught early, so it's as if the number is more," he added.

Doctor Rudy said that the number of diabetes patients aged young, early 20 years also increased. They suffer from early two-stage type diabetes, which is influenced by lifestyle and genetics. From Gen Z is not bad. Now many are also caught in the early 20 years of diabetes. Usually young people are usually type one, but when we check they are type two diabetes in the early stages. That's a lifestyle and genetic factor," he said.

Therefore, preventive measures against diabetes must be taken from an early age. Diabetes is a chronic disease related to blood sugar levels, which in the early stages usually sufferers do not feel significant symptoms.

Thus, it is important for public awareness to check blood sugar regularly every year. Doctor Rudy said blood sugar checks can be done easily and it is important to know the condition of the body to the risk of developing diabetes or not, so that prevention or treatment can be carried out from the start.

"The initial symptoms of diabetes don't exist, so you have to check. At least at the age of 40 you have to check (blood sugar) at least once every 2 years. But in my opinion and some local recommendations and Asia recommend that after the age of 20 we at least check once in three years. Checking blood sugar is also easy, so the condition can be found out," concluded Doctor Rudy Kurniawan.