Poor eat­ing habits and seden­tary lifestyles are fu­elling an in­crease in di­a­betes cas­es in rur­al ar­eas of south Trinidad.

This con­cern was raised by Sher­win Ram­nar­ine, di­rec­tor of the Bar­rack­pore Dawah Foun­da­tion, dur­ing a di­a­betes out­reach clin­ic host­ed by the or­gan­i­sa­tion last Sat­ur­day at its Rochard Dou­glas Road head­quar­ters.

Ram­nar­ine ex­plained that the easy avail­abil­i­ty of in­ex­pen­sive fast food is con­tribut­ing to the preva­lence of Type 2 di­a­betes. He not­ed that pop­u­lar low-cost In­di­an del­i­ca­cies have be­come a sta­ple in many rur­al com­mu­ni­ties. The sit­u­a­tion, he said, is made worse by the lack of recre­ation­al and sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties in some ar­eas.

Haylee Bachan, an ed­u­ca­tor with the Pe­nal branch of the Di­a­betes As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (DATT), said around 14 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion has di­a­betes. She not­ed that many peo­ple on­ly seek med­ical help af­ter be­ing di­ag­nosed. Bachan ad­vised that foods must be eat­en in mod­er­a­tion to re­duce the risk of di­a­betes.

“Some peo­ple have not been test­ed and their blood sug­ar and pres­sure are al­ready very high,” she said, urg­ing cit­i­zens to get screened as ear­ly as pos­si­ble, es­pe­cial­ly if there is a fam­i­ly his­to­ry of the ill­ness.

Sharmil­la Jagdeo, a mem­ber of DATT, added that many peo­ple with di­a­betes live in de­nial un­til they are hos­pi­talised.

“With a cor­rect di­et and ex­er­cise, you will be in con­trol,” she said, warn­ing that di­a­betes can trig­ger a chain of health prob­lems that may re­sult in blind­ness or the loss of limbs. She al­so en­cour­aged the pub­lic to “go easy” on lo­cal In­di­an dish­es.