Approximately 8.5 million Egyptians, or over 10 percent of the population, have been diagnosed with diabetes, according to Dr. Inas Shaltout, a professor of general internal medicine at Cairo University.
During a conference held by the Egyptian Society for the Study of Diabetes, she added that diabetes is a major health challenge in the world because it affects about 371 million people worldwide and causes the death of one person every seven seconds.
Obesity and aging contribute to the increase in the incidence of diabetes. It is expected that the disease will affect more than 500 million people by 2030.
A promising new study has shown that a type II diabetic could fast when receiving treatment through a new strategy that uses metformin and galvus. Unlike insulin therapy, this would stabilize glucose levels in the blood.
Mounira Arouj, an associate director of the Dasman Diabetes Institute in Kuwait and the main researcher behind the study, said that the sharp decline in blood sugar as a result of fasting could pose a serious health danger, but that upon closely following the guidelines of the new treatment, the patients could fast without being subjected to any such risk.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
