El-Kebbi IM, Bidikian NH, Hneiny L, Nasrallah MP. Epidemiology of type 2 diabetes in the Middle East and North Africa: Challenges and call for action. World J Diabetes 2021; 12(9): 1401-1425 [PMID: 34630897 DOI: 10.4239/wjd.v12.i9.1401]
Reader's ID:
05269073
Submitted on:
October 21, 2021, 13:52
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Reader Comments:
Dear Editor,
Regarding the study “Epidemiology of type 2 diabetes in the Middle East and North Africa: Challenges and call for action”, many points need to be cleared. For example, in the title it says “Middle East” but it also includes study participants from Pakistan, which is a South Asian country. A lot of literature has already been published which report that South Asian (people of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, Bhutan and Nepal) are pathophysiologicaly different in the development of Type 2 Diabetes than others e.g., Middle East or Africa. In this study authors have not incorporated the published studies from other South Asian region. Also not sure why certain countries from the region were selected and some other were excluded in this study.
Authors have mentioned in the methodology part that they performed robust search using PUBMED and other databases but authors have not mentioned how many articles they come across. Also while selecting the studies what was the level of confidence authors have about mentioning the particular studies.
Also authors have mentioned many of the paradigms in the current literature review, i.e., prevalence of diabetes, prediabetes, risk factors, and selective geographical regions, COVID-19, but could be more meaningful if authors can focus in bit more details less aspects but with more details.
In the Risk factors part, genetics section is not precise (authors have talked about genes but actually these are genetic variations –even these genetic variations does not explain the amount of variance that authors have mentioned). Generally pathophysiological interpretation are missing in the review.
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