People with diabetes

According to the 1993 US National Adult Literacy Survey, approximately 90 million people in the USA have deficiencies in reading or computational skills that prevent them from fully participating in normal daily activities – such as reading a bus schedule or entering background information on an application form. Although the Survey did not evaluate the ability to read and comprehend health-related materials,

President's editorial

For the West, the availability of animal insulin is a question of freedom of choice. However, it is the only way of survival for a number of people with diabetes in the developing world. Will the plea for help from the people with diabetes in the developing countries, in search of life, go unnoticed, unheard?

“We can control the disease on our own” are the words of Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ishaq Mukaddam, Pakistan, an advocate of self-monitoring, who has been on haemodialysis for the last two years.

The success of the Diabetic Counsellors in Training (CiTs) programme has not only been recognized locally but also internationally. The counsellors presented their programme at last year’s Pan Africa Congress held in Johannesburg and again at the 17th IDF Congress in Mexico City. At both congresses, their presentation received standing ovation. What is this revolutionary and dynamic movement out of Johannesburg, South Africa?

“My name is Olivia Bayne. I am from the island of Barbados located in the West Indies. I am like the average teenager but with one vital difference. I have had Type 1 diabetes since I was eight years old…”

Hazel Davies and Roy Cross have never met, but they have a lot in common: they are both Australian centenarians, masters of long-term diabetes control. This story is a tribute to them and their astonishing achievement in reaching a ripe age with diabetes—and without complications.

When firefighter Tim Hoy developed Type 1 diabetes he was immediately placed on 'light duties' pending a medical dismissal. Tim successfully appealed against the decision, but the assumption that the need for self-treatment with insulin, with its associated risk of hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar levels), poses a safety risk in the workplace is a recurrent problem. The Edinburgh-based study, funded by Diabetes UK, gathered data from over 243 people with diabetes.

The political and social situation in the Gaza Strip remains tense, with considerable disruption of normal economic and social activity. Such an environment is rarely conducive to the delivery of continuing medical care. In this article Panagiotis Tsapogas, Medical Co-ordinator of the Greek section of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in Gaza, 2002-2003, reports on the difficulties faced by Palestinian people with diabetes in Gaza, and makes a call for the provision of improved diabetes care.

Shilpa Verma from India is a mother, a wife, a diabetologist and a clinical researcher. But long before she became all these, she was diagnosed with diabetes.