MARTIAL ARTS INSTRUCTOR KICKS TYPE 2 DIABETES IN 12 WEEKS
▶ Technology and diet change helped John Duval shed 31kg after shock diagnosis of condition
A martial arts instructor has diabetes under control 12 weeks after a shock diagnosis of the condition while he recovered from Covid-19.
Austrian John Duval, 41, weighed 137 kilograms but thought he lived a healthy, active life until he was struck by the coronavirus and admitted to hospital in November.
It was then doctors discovered Mr Duval, who lives in Dubai, had Type 2 diabetes.
Three months later, after he followed a strict healthy eating and exercise regime and lost 31kg, the diabetes is now in remission.
“Without having Covid-19, I would not have known I had diabetes. It was a big surprise,” said Mr Duval, who teaches kung fu at Golden Eagle Martial Arts in Dubai.
“I thought I was super healthy, I trained regularly and tried to eat well.
“When doctors told me I had the disease, I thought it was impossible. They put me on insulin three times a day.
“I was allowed home after two negative PCR tests and I was referred to a diabetes doctor, who prescribed special medication.”
While Type 2 diabetes cannot be cured, it can be reversed by diet changes and weight loss.
It allows people with the disease to reach and maintain normal blood sugar levels without the need for medication.
On leaving hospital, Mr Duval signed up to a monitoring and treatment programme with diabetes centre GluCare and uses Digital Therapeutics to check his blood sugar levels, dietary intake and exercise.
The Dubai company’s management plan includes a comprehensive assessment and biometric wearable devices to monitor how a patient responds to certain foods.
Users are sent reminders and updates on their health status by professionals who remotely monitor the patient’s diabetic status.
“It made me super aware of what I was eating,” Mr Duval said. “I cut out a lot of foods, including all carbohydrates like rice, pasta and bread.
“I swapped them for lentils and chia seeds, and drank lots of tea and a minimum of three litres of water a day.
“It felt like I was back in school, but I lost 31 kilograms in total.”
Mr Duval now weighs 106kg. The World Health Organisation estimates that 422 million people have diabetes, with 1.6 million deaths directly attributed to the condition each year.
It also expects the disease to increase across the Middle East to affect more than 42 million people by 2030.
Currently, there are about 1.2 million people living with diabetes in the UAE, placing it 15th on a league table of international prevalence.
GluCare’s managing director and co-founder, Ihsan Al Marzooqi, said tailor-made diabetes management programmes could cut the huge costs associated with longterm care.
“The cost of diabetes is enormous,” he said. “Not only at a societal and economic level, but fundamentally on an individual level.
“While technology is at the core of what we do, it is the application and use of it that allows us to connect with our patients in a more meaningful, impactful and supportive way,” Mr Al Marzooqi said.
“The use of data to understand our patient’s health allows us to be more present with them in the clinic and prescribe care more effectively.”