The ministry of Health took the initiative to put national strategies in order to embrace framed systems, policies, and proceedings to improve the Saudi society’s health pattern by gathering representatives from seven different governmental entities more than a year ago. They wanted to decrease chronic diseases prevalence’s average, and to reduce the national burden towards these diseases such as; Diabetes, obesity, heart diseases, arteriosclerosis, hypertension, stroke and high ratios of cholesterol in blood. This is a great thing, but to apply this in real life we need many years because of changing behavior and manners is not an easy thing, and never done in one night.
My dear readers, we do not want to wait for solutions for a very simple thing. We all are sure about the danger of the unhealthy patterns on our health and our children’s and the coming generations. Waiting for comprehensive solutions is ineffective at all, and we don’t need to imagine that the government would teach us how to care for our health and our families’. Thus, I think that we need to improve our life’s pattern, and I will offer u some suggestions, which I see them, helpful and effective as other countries experiments and the total accumulated practical experience we have.
-Chronic Diseases in Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Gulf countries:
Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia and some of Arabian Gulf’s countries are at the head of the list of the most countries which suffer from chronic diseases such as; diabetes, obesity, heart diseases, cancer and digestive system diseases. All of these diseases are related to the excessive food. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia alone has 71% of the death cases around the world in addition to causing some disabilities.
Obesity is one of the most dangerous chronic diseases which attacked the kingdom, and its rate rose distressingly in the last few years. According to World Health Organization’s latest statistics, Saudi Arabia came in the seventh standing and in some other statistics it came in the third standing. World Health Organization affirmed that Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait have the highest obesity ratios among the world. The obesity research center in the University of King Saud, headed by Dr. Aa’ed Al-Qahtaani, did a study which exposes that three-fourths of the Saudi Society are living with obesity (70% of the kingdom men, and 75% of its women). He added that 80% of diabetes patients of the second type are in relation to obesity. The Executive Office of the Council of Ministers of Health of the Gulf found that there are almost 20 thousand death cases a year in Saudi Arabia because of obesity, and about 3.5 million child are living with it (36% of the society). Saudi children are suffering from heart diseases, hypertension, diabetes and blockage of cardiovascular because of obesity. Fifty percent of the Saudi have high cholesterol levels according to the studies. I think the ratio is higher than this because this problem does not have any clear syndrome unless being discovered during the periodic inspection that I always advise doing for those who exceeded thirty years of age.
The studies assure that 42% of death cases in Saudi Arabia are because of heart diseases and that 40% of patients whom are come to the emergency sections in hospitals are heart patients.
Diabetes is considered one of the most dangerous chronic diseases in the world because it is a way to other diseases. What makes it more dangerous is that more than 55% of the diabetics do not know if they are infected or not. There are many reasons for this like the fear of infection confirmation, many of them have the syndromes, and, however, they do not go to see a doctor. On the other hand, the assured ratio for diabetes prevalence rate for those who are above 30 is 28%.
Hypertension prevalence rate attains 25.5% of the population of the Kingdom. By 2025, experts expect that the ratio will reach 49.5% of the total population of Saudi Arabia. Cardiovascular diseases always accompany this fatal disease, and its estimated fatality rate is 22%.
These chronic diseases are a burden on the national economy. One study shows that the obese alone cost Saudi Arabia mare than 500 Million SR a year. Moreover, this is because of their reluctance to hospitals to treat diseases related to their obesity, perhaps the most prevalent is diabetes, which is spread widely among the obese.
According to the statistical yearbook of the ministry of health and World Health Organization, heart diseases are the reason for 42% of death cases in Saudi Arabia in 2010. Regarding to death cases registered only in the hospitals of the ministry of health, there is a slight improvement in deaths due to diseases of the circulatory system ratio. The ratio has decreased from 17.99% to 16.74% and then to 16.39%, respectively, for the years 2008, 2009 and 2010.
The official statistics mentioned that cancer patients in Saudi Arabia proceed 12 thousands a year. The Saudi association of cancer agrees on this number, it confirms that about 13 thousands of the Saudi, men and women, were infected with cancer during this year 2013, including all types of it. The association also points out that this number will be doubled through the next ten years to reach 30 thousands patient. Eleven percent a year is the ratio of cancer increasing in Saudi Arabia, and this means that the ratio in the kingdom is three times bigger than the global increasing ratio. Moreover, 900 million SR are spent on diagnosis and treatment of such cases, while sales of all types of cancer drugs amounted to nearly 2 billion SR per year.