Blue dot to help India’s diabetics

In a positive development for diabetics, menu cards at Indian restaurants and food packets might soon carry blue dots to represent diabetes-friendly food items.

Currently, only two dots are in use — red and green, signifying non-vegetarian and vegetarian food respectively. Blue has been selected as the colour to represent food that is favourable for consumption by diabetics as the World Health Organisation (WHO) uses a blue circle in the ‘World Diabetes Day’ emblem.

The dot is the brainchild of three city-based diabetologists from United Diabetes Forum — Dr Manoj Chawla, Dr Rajeev Kovil and Dr Tejas Shah.

Speaking to The Asian Age, Dr Chawla, consultant diabetologist and coordinator, department of diabetology, Asian Heart institute and Research Centre, said, “Experts from various medical backgrounds have come together for the benefit of diabetes patients. Multi-specialty experts have been involved in forming an expert panel to define the blue dot and give it a structured definition. We had our latest meeting on November 4 where diabetologists and nutritionists came to discuss the matter.” “The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is co-operating with us in making it successful,” he added .

Dr Daksha Shah, a senior health officer from BMC who was present in the meeting, said, “It is a good initiative if it gets included in all food chains, as it will provide options to people, especially now when diabetes is on the rise. But this will not be enough to control diabetes. People need to be more aware about their requirements to keep a cap on diabetes.”

According to National Health Report 2015, after Gujarat, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra has the highest number of diabetes patients. As per the report, in the 2014-15, Maharashtra recorded 53,488 diabetes patients. In the same period, 5,59,718 patients diabetes were recorded across the country,