The first ever diabetes fact sheet which consists of most comprehensive information pack for over thirty million diabetic patients across the country was released by Prof. M Paul Anand, the past president of the Association of Physicians of India recently during Apicon 2005, the annual conference organized by the Association of Physicians of India at Hyderabad.

The fact sheet, to be approved by the Indian College of Physicians (ICP) and the Association of Physicians of India (API), will be made available through doctors in 8 regional languages and will be web enabled. The fact sheet was done due to unrestricted Education grant from Novo Nordisk, the largest human insulin and Insulin devices manufacturer and LifeScan, division of Johnson and Johnson.

The diabetes fact sheet covers a host of topics ranging from the basics of diabetes to the prevention of diabetes to drug therapy to insulin administration to managing hypoglycemia to foot complications to self-monitoring of blood sugar among other topics. There are special fact sheets on Insulin and insulin devices along with self-monitoring of blood glucose levels for patients on insulin.

"Diabetes is also the leading cause for cardiac arrests, amputations, kidney failure and blindness. The biggest need for a reliable fact sheet is very relevant in this context as people need to be educated about the disease to be able to manage it better," elaborated Dr Sidharth Shah, organising chairman, Diamond Apicon 2005.