Dietary misconceptions in Pakistani Diabetic Patients

Objective: to find out prevalence of various myths regarding diet of diabetics in local population. methodology: this was a cross sectional study conducted at diabetic clinic and medical opd in civil hospital karachi from january 2008 to december 2008. a total of 409 diabetic patients of either gender, age 18 or above who had given the consent were randomly selected. a pretested semi structured questionnaire regarding sociodemographic profile and various dietary myths regarding diabetes were used to get information from the study group. result: out of 409 diabetic subjects 207(50.6%) were male. average age was 51.6 ±10.4 years. most of the participant 397(97.1%) were type 2 diabetics. large number of subjects 83(20.3%) were either illiterate or had had primary schooling 112 (27.4%). most of the participants 256 (62.6%) never received any diabetic education. majority of study subjects 348(85%) believed in special diet for control of blood sugar level while large proportion of study population 335 (81.9%) did not use underground vegetables and same number of participants had strong belief in bitter vegetables as natural remedy. forty one percent study subjects had myths regarding fruits while 301(73.5 %) said that rice is prohibited. study population who believed in special diet showed significant p-value (<0.005) when compared with those who did not. similarly the group that had received diabetic education showed significant p-value when compared with those who did not. conclusions: a large number of diabetic patients especially those who never received any diabetic education have strong dietary misconceptions.