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In support of World Diabetes Day and National Diabetes Awareness month this November, and in collaboration with the Qatar Diabetes Association (QDA), Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s (HBKU) Qatar Biomedical Research Institute (QBRI) is co-organizing a number of community outreach initiatives to shed light on the importance of diabetes prevention, detection, and treatment. QBRI will set up an information booth at Qatar Foundation’s Oxygen Park on November 17 from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm, with a meetup at 2:00 pm, where members of the community can participate in various activities to learn more about the prevalence of diabetes in Qatar and the region, as well as measures that can be taken to reduce risk of the disease. In addition, QBRI will set up a booth at Landmark Mall on November 18, from 9 am to 10 pm, distributing informational flyers to visitors about the disease, its cause and progression.
As part of its collaboration with QDA and contribution towards diabetes awareness, the World Diabetes Day event will include a range of physical activities from partnering institutions. Supplementing the activities co-organized by QBRI, health and fitness centers “My Gym” and “Curves” will set-up their own booths and host their own activities, including a special section for children and free overall body fat analysis for adults.
Type 2 diabetes is a debilitating disease in the Middle East, and particularly in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), where five of the six-nation union rank on the top 10 list of countries with the highest diabetes rate. The average prevalence rate in the Gulf region is around 20 percent, more than twice that of the global average, and an additional upsurge is expected if no major action is taken to combat the disease.
At the booths, a presentation by the researchers from the Diabetes Research Center at QBRI will be conducted, where the public will receive the opportunity to learn about innovative research on stem cells and the identification of novel biomarkers for early prediction of the disease, in addition to new findings on mechanism–based disease progression.