OH my God, seven million diabetic patients in Malaysia by 2025? That's the astounding figure given in 2019 by the then health minister. And it's what a Life & Times report warned of again a few days ago.
Now you must be more worried about the prospect of facing Movement Control Order-like measures soon. We will know on Monday.
But imagine, one in every five or six Malaysians will have this dreadful disease in five years. It is as frightening as Covid-19.
My dad had diabetes. He seemed to have it under control. Tea and coffee without sugar and regular exercise helped, I guess.
But he died almost immediately after suffering a stroke at the age of 55 in 1987. Diabetes could have caused this massive attack. We will never find out.
I know much has been written on the disease. And more will be said about it. Tonnes more.
Ursula told her husband in One Hundred Years of Solitude that "[c]hildren inherit their parents' madness". What about me? Did I get this diabetic 'madness', too?
Well, a doctor offers an assurance that my blood sugar level is in "okay territory". That's a huge relief.
I last did a blood test, which I detest, two years ago. It was my first in 18 years. We are in fact advised to do it twice a year!
So, what can we do to ward off this lifestyle disease? Plenty, it seems.
In the past year, I have compelled myself to do the following. You may already be doing them. But if you have not, you may want to give them some thought.
Firstly, when I order food from restaurants, which happens every now and then when the home kitchen specialist is on leave, I speak to the cook.
Do you know what I tell him?
Well, when I am getting mee goreng, for instance, I would say, "Bro, kurang garam, kurang gula, kurang mee, sayur lebih, tak mahu kuih udang." ("Bro, less salt, less sugar, less noodles, more vegetables, no prawn fritters." By the way, the fritters are flour through and through. Nary a prawn!)
Now that's quite a few things for the cook to remember. And at first, the friendly fellow would stare a little, or furrow his brows, or maybe chuckle. (Maybe he was thinking, "This crazy dude should cook it himself".)
It took a while, but he and the others have gotten used to my not-so-common requests.
Secondly, I almost always take parboiled rice instead of plain white rice. It is lower in carbohydrates and has fewer calories, so I read.
The fellows scooping out the rice would put lots on the plate. I would say "kurang lagi" (give me less), at least twice. They would inevitably laugh. Some would say, "Apasal makan sedikit?" (Why eat so little?)
But rice is no laughing matter where diabetes is concerned.
Now the third measure has to do with my craving for cakes. The ready-made ones at the bakeries have enough sugar to drown me in "sweet" despair.
What I do now is order my cake (and apam balik) "kurang manis". Incidentally, for drinks it is always "kurang, kurang, kurang manis".
The fact is, I am sure most of you have your own ways of trying to deal with this grave challenge of our time. Unhappily, our schemes may not be enough to head off diabetes.
The statistics and future don't look good at all. Not sweet, but bitter.
The prospect of seven million diabetic patients in 2025 should make us shudder with fright. As much as we shudder at the thought of the MCO, and of Covid-19 snapping at our heels.
The writer is NST Production Editor