Barcelona will host between September 23 and 27 the 49th edition of the Congress organized annually by the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), with the intention of first exceeding the figure of 20,000 participants.This has been explained by the organizer of the Congress and director of IDIBAPS, Ramon Gomis.
This is the second time that the Catalan capital hosts the organization of the event, a medical appointment that will have attendees from more than 120 countries that will address the latest advances in the investigation of diabetes and the care of the disease, and that relievesBerlin as an organizer last year -then 18,100 people attended, a figure that grows every year from the 7,000 congressmen of 2000-.
The Congress, which will be held at the Gran Via de Fira in Barcelona, will have about 400 oral presentations and around a thousand posters, as explained by the executive director of the EASD, the German Viktor Jörgens, which makes up a"Great scientific level" and makes the appointment one of the four most important medical congresses held in Europe.
The specialists have highlighted the relevance of diabetes, whose different variants affect 13.8 % of the Spanish population between 18 and 70 years, an "epidemic closely related to obesity and sedentary lifestyle" but of which it is still unknown toaccuracy the mechanism that triggers it.Diabetes is "one of the most expensive diseases," said Jörgens, especially for associated pathologies, taking as reference calculations that associate this disease with about 19 % of the public health budget in Spain -80 % of diabeticsIt ends up developing hypertension.
The Congress coorganizer Ignasi Conget and the IDIBAPS Anna Novials diabetologist have recalled that there are studies that link cases of diabetes cancer, although they have also pointed out that a correct control of patient's blood glucose levels can ensure hopeof life similar to that of the general population.
Among the novelties that will be addressed in Congress isDevelop mechanisms for overview of the pancreas.
"We are far from healing diabetes, but the perspective has changed a lot," Conget summarized, since although it is obvious that not all diabetics follow adequate metabolic control, there are now devices that facilitate control and supply of insulin.
On this point, the organizers have highlighted the intention of the EASD to act as lobby in the European Union (EU) to guarantee the complete security of diabetic devices, in the style of what already happens with the medication agency and the prostheses ofhip, breasts or coronary valves.
