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Management of diabetes in Kuwait and Switzerland: Bad medications or bad genes?

Kuwait | Medicine, Public Health

Swiss partners

  • Université de Lausanne - Centre hospitalier universitaire vaudois CHUV: Pedro Marques-Vidal (main applicant)

Partners in the MENA region

  • Dasman Diabetes Institute, Koweït: Abdullah Alkandari (main applicant)

Presentation of the projet

The research partnership grant 2021 from the Leading House for the Middle East and North Africa allowed the fruitful collaboration between the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) in Switzerland and the Dasman Diabetes Institute in Kuwait in assessing the importance of clinical, behavioural, and genetic markers on the management of diabetes in both countries.

In Switzerland, control of diabetes remains poor, even though it improved from less than one-quarter of participants with diabetes in 2003-6 to one-third in 2018-21. Regarding the management of the other risk factors, blood pressure control improved from one-half of participants to almost two-thirds, and the largest improvement was found for the management of high cholesterol levels, which went from less than one-third to over half of participants with diabetes. Still, adequate control of all three risk factors (diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol) was very low, only one out of twenty participants achieving it in 2003-2006 and one out of six participants 15 years later. Seven genetic risk scores (GRS) for diabetes were also tested; although the GRS allow detecting participants with diabetes, the GRS are irrelevant in clinical practice to manage diabetes.

The Kuwaiti part of the project is currently being developed and will be finalized during the November visit of the Swiss partner to the Dasman Diabetes Institute.

Besides the objectives of the study, the funding allowed establishing other collaborations between the two institutions such as (un)stability of diabetes control with time and (un)reliability of family history reports. Reinforcement of the collaboration between the two institutions via the application to other funding sources is planned.

More on this project

Article published in BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care (2023)

Article published in Diabetology & Metabolic Syndrome (2023)

Presentation at the ESC Preventive Cardiology in April 2025