Chennai :
An endocrinology conference organised by Endocrine Society of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry saw the participation of more than 1,200 doctors and scientists from various parts of the country and abroad.
The meeting held on July 19 and 20 provided for a wonderful academic feast for physicians, gynaecologists and other practitioners having interest in various areas of endocrinology.
The conference began with a debate on the importance of Vitamin D and its relevance to holistic health. Prof A K Das, Dr Arun Menon and Dr Kaushik Pandit pointed out that the vitamin plays an important role not only in bone health, but also in reducing mortality, heart disease and even cancer. There is strong optimism among scientists that more benefits of Vitamin D will be discovered in large trials over the next few years.
A seminar on parathyroid disorders by Dr Thomas Paul, Manoj Chada, Dr Prabhu and Dr Arun Menon, brought to focus that these disorders were not uncommon and should be considered as an important cause for kidney stones and osteoporosis. The discussion focused on the need to do further tests in cases of fractures and kidney stones.
Prof Nielsen and Prof Walker underlined the importance of family studies in the understanding of reasons behind diabetes. Better understanding through population studies will aid health professionals to advise patients regarding the importance of lifestyle changes to prevent and treat Type 2 diabetes. Walker discussed the link between overweight, obesity, insulin resistance and newer medications targeting Type 2 diabetes in future.
Areas like alcoholic fatty liver in diabetes were brought to focus by Dr Sarita Bajaj. The seminar focused on the fact that diabetes would become the single most important cause for liver failure in the next decade and observed that identifying and treating it early can reduce the progression to a large extent.
Screening for diabetes in pregnant young women and educating women regarding the importance of lifestyle changes before becoming pregnant were also discussed. It said that obesity seemed to have a link with insulin resistance and poly cystic ovarian disease, having implications in fertility, development of diabetes in pregnant mothers and fetal health. These disorders in the mother could affect the child later with excess obesity, diabetes, hypertension etc. This needs to be studied more to avoid health problems in the next generation.
Another session on Type 1 diabetes in children by Dr Swaminathan, Dr Prasanna Kumar and Dr Sundararaman, dealt with the importance of treating children with diabetes by a team of experts to avoid future complications in this group.
Dr Vijay V discussed the importance of diabetic foot problems and ways to effectively deal with a problem of public health importance.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / Express News Service / July 24th, 2014