Hospitals in the country are seeing an increasing number of diabetic patients every year. The Thimphu National Referral hospital alone attended to some 2,700 diabetic patients from beginning of this year till now, an increase of 700 patients as against last year’s figure.
As world diabetes day was observed in Thimphu today, health officials spread awareness on why healthy food is important to reduce the risks of getting diabetes.
“They must eat simple food and must do exercise on a regular basis. They must not put on weight. They must not drink alcohol and smoke,” said Dr.Tashi Wangdi, the department head of medicine with JDWNR Hospital.
According to the health officials, diabetic is a serious lifestyle disease and is costly to treat the disease. A diabetic patient has a risk of not only kidney failure, but heart attacks and also a risk of going blind.
