A lifestyle characterized by inactivity, comfort and overeating among Uganda's urban school- going youth from wealthy families has made them and their parents prone to diabetes, the state-owned daily New Vision reported on Saturday.

The report said that at the fourth scientific conference of the Uganda Diabetes Association (UDA) on Friday, Ugandan Prime Minister Apolo Nsibambi regretted the UDA finding, saying it cast a gloomy picture on Uganda's health image.

Nsibambi said about one million Ugandans were suffering from diabetes mellitus. It constituted a striking contrast to the figure in 1972 when only 254 African diabetic subjects were registered in Mulago Hospital diabetic clinic.

"This is a huge number for a poor country like Uganda to cope with, bearing in mind that we are already over-burdened with the communicable diseases like tuberculosis, AIDS and malaria," the prime minister was quoted as saying.

"Most of the current upsurge of new diabetics is in the third world countries. This is mainly because of the changing lifestyle towards that characterized by inactivity, comfort and overeating," Nsibambi added, noting that diabetes was considered to be a rare disease among Africans in the 1970's.

UDA chairman Andrew Otim said the prevalence of diabetes among school-going children began to shoot up in 1976, for the age of 6- 11 and 12-17.

Otim, also diabetic, formed the UDA in 1982 to create public awareness.

Source: Xinhua