VIJAYAWADA: Unsystematic school timings in the capital region are making children below 12-years-old diabetic. School going children in the capital city and its surroundings are found to be either pre-diabetic or diabetic.
A study carried out by Dr T. Satish Chandra, a city-based endocrinologist and diabetes specialist, has found that 30 per cent of the school going children between the age group 10-12 years in the region were pre-diabetic or diabetic.
“It is not just due to their economic background,” Dr Satish Chandra observed and added that increasing stress levels and unsystematic school timings have led to this condition.
According to Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism (IJEM), it is estimated that India houses around 97,700 children with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM). A study of 30 children, with insulin-dependent diabetes, with age of diagnosis less than 15 years was conducted in 1992. The study found the prevalence of diabetes in 0.26/1000 children. The peak age of diagnosis was 12 years.
This was the first population-based study of prevalence of insulin-dependent diabetes in South India. This shows that insulin-dependent diabetes is not rare and is higher than that reported from many other Asian countries.
Based on this study, Dr. T. Satish Chandra of Vijayawada carried out a micro-study, confining the study area to Vijayawada and its surroundings. “I was astonished to note that at least five school children visit diabetes specialists in the city every consecutive day,” Dr. Satish Chandra observed. It is an alarming situation wherein the Departments of School education, Sports, and managements of corporate schools should sit and think,” the Doctor said in his study.
“When there are timings for places of worship, entertainment malls, movie theatres and in that matter, even for bars, why the same rule is not applicable for schools?” Dr. Satish Chandra has questioned.
“Forcing children to stay back till 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. from morning 8 a.m. in packed rooms, without any sports and physical activity, would certainly make them diabetic,” the doctor observed.
