GRASSROOTS HEALTHCARE With an increased focus on informal care, it is possible to significantly improve the lives of diabetes patients. This is shown by the research project VALID, which has just completed its first phase in Vietnam. According to VALID‘s project leader, its results can also have a broader impact.

Chronic diseases such as diabetes no longer just pose a challenge in wealthy, Western countries. They are also becoming more prevalent in low- and middle-income countries, such as in Vietnam, which is experiencing a large increase in the number of diabetes patients.

These people are the focus of the VALID research project. In March the project concluded its first phase, VALID I, which has focused on developing the informal support and care in everyday diabetes management. This care can improve the lives of people with diabetes and potentially also help to limit the spread of the disease.

The chronic disease, which previously was relatively unknown in Vietnam, is currently escalating in the Southeast Asian country, with particularly serious consequences for families living far from the hospitals where they can receive treatment.

The rise in the number of diabetes patients is partly due to lifestyle changes - but not just the ones we struggle with in Western countries. The Vietnamese situation is different - in just a few years, the population has gone from being underfed to adequately nourished. This transition is likely also a risk factor due to so-called foetal programming, says project manager Tine Gammeltoft, a professor at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen. According to this theory, the foetus‘ body is ‘programmed‘ before birth to receive a certain amount of nutrition:

"If you were born in the 1980s and 1990s or earlier, when Vietnam experienced enormous poverty, your body is geared to receive very little nutrition. When prosperity then increases so much over the course of the 90s that Vietnam in 2011 becomes a middle-income country and the Vietnamese people get a regular diet, their bodies are not prepared for it. This may be one of the reasons why many are affected by chronic diseases such as diabetes."