There is no denying that walking is good for health and when you are getting free tickets for the same, there could be nothing better than that.

It has been recently announced that the first 2,000 residents who will register for Friday's diabetes walkathon will walkaway in style with the free tickets to the Nelly Furtado concert on Yas Island.

It is to be mentioned here that the Imperial College London Diabetes Centre (ICLDC), the organisers of Walk UAE 2010 plans to give away around 4K tickets to the local residents when the singer-songwriter will perform at the Yas Arena beginning at 7pm tonight.

International Diabetes Federation (IDF) is of a view that diabetes treatment takes up 40 per cent of the annual UAE health-care budget and is in a situation where close to 680,000 youngsters below 20 years of age are diagnosed with the disease.

The report has also mentioned that the diabetes prevalence in the UAE among the 20-79 age groups will reach 21.4 per cent by 2030.

The gulf region as of now has close to 3.5 million diabetes patients and it is expected that events like Walkathon will help it get control on the number to grow further.