DOHA: A new study has found that up to 4.2 per cent of secondary school students in Qatar could be prediabetic.
Prediabetes is a condition in which blood sugar level is higher than normal but not sufficiently high to be labelled as diabetes.
The study was conducted by Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q) and Qatar Diabetes Association (QDA).
The research involved four Independent schools and 1,694 students aged between 11 and 18.
In all, 56 boys and 15 girls were found to have the high blood sugar levels associated with prediabetes. Significantly, the researchers were also able to identify the risk factors associated with prediabetes. The knowledge could help prevent a disease that afflicts between 15 and 17 percent of Qatar’s population.
Of the 1,694 participants, 988 were Qatari citizens and 706 came from mostly Middle Eastern countries. Strikingly, almost half of the students were overweight. In the case of the boys, 46 percent were either overweight or obese. In the girls, 44 percent were classed as overweight or obese.
The study, published in the prestigious Journal of Royal Society of Medicine has been authored by Drs Javaid Sheikh, Ravinder Mamtani and Sohaila Cheema from WCMC-Q and Dr Abdulla Al Hamaq, Sharoud Matthis and Katie El Nahas from QDA.
The researchers used a questionnaire to collect the demographic and health information, for example the weight and height of a student, how much exercise they did and their basic lifestyle.
After all the data was collated and analysed, it was found that 4.2 percent of the students were prediabetic. However, being male significantly increases the risk. Of the 974 boys in the study, 56 were found to be prediabetic — or 6 percent. Of the 720 girls, 15 were prediabetic, or 2 percent.
Apart from being male, another factor associated with prediabetes was having a parent who was diabetic and having a girth to height ratio greater than 0.5. This means that a child who is 160cm tall should have a waist measurement of no more than 80cm.
Dr Sohaila Cheema, Director of Global and Public Health at WCMC-Q, said that regular exercise and a balanced, nutritious diet played a huge role in the prevention and progression of type 2 diabetes. “We found that children who exercised daily tended to have lower weight than those who did not,” said Cheema.
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