Introduction
Glucose is a ubiquitous fuel in biology. High blood sugar levels stimulate the release of insulin, which increases the uptake of glucose by the cells to be used as energy and excess glucose will be converted as glycogen, stored in the liver and muscle cells, or used in the production of fats (insulin + Glucose) in adipose tissue. Conversely, when the blood glucose level begins to drop several hours after food intake, results in decreased insulin production and rise in glucagon secretion, which stimulates the breakdown of stored glycogen into glucose released in the blood stream to maintain the blood glucose level at 80 mg/dl. If the stored glycogen is also depleted, liver and muscle cells use fatty acids as fuel by the breakdown of fat in the adipose tissue (WHO, 2016).
When there is a lack of insulin secretion or cell resistance to uptake glucose even in the presence of insulin leads to “Diabetes Mellitus”. Diabetes Mellitus arises when insufficient insulin is produced, or when the available insulin does not function correctly, resulting in an abnormally high amount of glucose in the blood stream, causing frequent urination to premature death. During 2012 about 1.5 million deaths due to diabetes made 8th leading cause of death (Worldwide trends in diabetes since 1980).
Globally 422 million people lived with diabetes during 2014, and the prevalence rate is 8.5 (%). The prevalence of diabetes has been steadily increasing and most rapidly in low- and middle-income countries, and about 62% of people with diabetes were undiagnosed, with the prevalence still bound to increase several folds. China, India, and USA are among the top three countries with a high number of diabetic populations (Seuring et al., 2015). In India, numbers climbed from 11.9 million in 1980 to 64.5 million during 2014. The prevalence of diabetes has more than doubled for men (3.7% (1980) to 9.1 % (2014)) and 80% (4.6% to 8.3%) among the women population in India. It has been estimated that the globally annual expenditure cost for diabetes is more than USD 827 billion, which imposes a large economic burden on the health care system (Seuring et al., 2015).
Diabetes prevention and effective management of diabetes should be a public health priority to reduce death, and financial burden warrants new research on preventive efforts rare than treatment. Awareness and education are the key role, especially in screening, control, and better management for various diseases, including diabetes. Various research also carried out presently more than 80% of population well aware about diabetes, but still, India is second largest, next to China in diabetes population. About 99% of the awareness studies and education based only on treatment aspects like symptoms, screening, management, complications etc. but none of the studies highlighted the awareness on preventive aspects by creating knowledge and awareness on root cause for diabetes for which the people must be sensitized ((Seuring et al., 2015). Though awareness and education is a key role for better management everyone, at least graduates should be aware of the basic knowledge on the root cause for diabetes, by which they can create awareness among their family members, friends, and nearby population by which themselves will change their lifestyle, what to have, when to have, how much to have, what to do, what should avoid etc.
The present study was designed to attempt preventive aspects to assess the existing knowledge on diabetes to create awareness about the root cause for diabetes among those who completed their science graduation from in and around Pondicherrhy, India, using a structured, pre-tested questionnaire (Deepa et al., 2014).
