Prevention of diabetes

The Diabetes Prevention and Care can be divided into Primary,
Secondary and Tertiary prevention.

1.PRIMARY PREVENTION- The two strategies suggested for the primary
prevention are

a) POPULATION BASED STRATEGY- The development of prevention
programmes for Diabetes based on the elimination of environmental risk
factors is possible. The prevention of development of even the risk
factors so called, primordial prevention, should be implied.

b) HIGH RISK STRATEGY- Correction of risk factors once they appear
like sedentery life style, over-nutrition , obesity, smoking, high blood
pressure and elevated cholestrol will reduce the risk of diabetes. It
targets the high risk target population.

2. SECONDARY PREVENTION- This implies the adequate treatment of
Diabetes once detected. Treatment can be based on diet alone , diet and
anti-diabetic drugs or diet and insulin. Routine check up of blood sugar,
body weight, urine for proteins and ketones and visual acuity should be
done to effectively reduce complications. The methods used in it can be

a) Patient self-care.
b) Home Blood glucose monitoring.
c) Glycosated Hemoglobin Estimations at half yearly intervals.

3. TERTIARY PREVENTION- At the tertiary level the special Diabetes
clinics should be organised and establishment of units capable of
providing diagnostic and management skills of high order should be done.

All the ways of prevention can work in unison to reduce the mortality
and morbidity associated with Diabetes , but in the coming times the
stress should be on the primordial and the primary prevention.

Competing interests:
None declared