Dr Mubashir Uthman, a community health expert, on Thursday, said diabetes would be the seventh leading cause of death by the year 2030. He made the disclosure during the 2016 World Health Day in Ilorin with the theme: "Halt the rise: Beat diabetes."

Uthman, of the Department of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH), said that Nigerians suffering from the disease spent 29 per cent of their minimum wage on treatment.

The community health expert pointed out that diabetes was very expensive to treat, adding that 60. 9 per cent of people live below a dollar in 2010. He explained that "insulin for treatment of diabetes is expensive and a patient needs about eight dose of it monthly.

"More Nigerians are dying from diabetes risk factors and individual with family history of diabetes are at risk. "People with sedentary life style, reduced activity and obesity are all at risk.''

On his part, Prof. Tanimola Akande, the National Chairman of Association of Public Health Physicians of Nigeria (APHPN), said that prevention of the disease entailed change of lifestyle. Akande explained that people needed to indulge in daily exercise, eating of balanced diet and must stop smoking.

He advised government to subsidise drugs for the treatment of people with diabetes. In her submission, Mrs Elelu Bashir, a Dietitian at the hospital, said measures were essential in the treatment of diabetes, weather the patient was on diet, tablet or insulin.

She said that diabetes patients required the help of dietitians to modify their food, noting that dietary requirement for diabetes shouldn't be too different from eating a normal diet. Bashir advised patients to take fruits and eat at regular intervals, adding that watermelon should be consumed with the seed. (NAN