IDRC 2018

4. Internation Diabetes und Ramadan Conference

The month of Ramadan has special significance for all Muslims of the world as fasting in RAMADAN is one of the five pillars of Islam. Muslim constitute around 1.7 billion people of the world population. It is obligatory for all healthy adult Muslims to fast from dawn to dusk for whole one month each year.

For many chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension etc there are no clear cut guidelines for patients who are stable and can fast during Ramadan. Recommendations and suggestions are based on personal experiences and are expert opinions but evidence based guidelines are missing. As Muslim scientists it is our responsibility to find out answers of unanswered questions.

Secondly, until we gather sufficient evidences, whatever knowledge we have, we need to disseminate it. Ramadan specific education is the corner stone of safe fasting, the notion proven in several studies. Baqai Institute of Diabetology and Endocrinology took initiative in 2008 to form Ramadan Study Group.