Health and Tech: ‘Diabetes, NCDs in India considerably higher’

Study finds 136 million people in the country could be living with pre-diabetes condition

Hyderabad: A recent India-specific collaborative study/survey taken-up by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and researchers from Madras Diabetes Research, highlighting the perils of diabetes and Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and pre-diabetes on the health of the Indian population in the coming years, has grabbed everybody’s attention.

The study, which covered 1,13,043 individuals from all Indian states including Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, which was published online on June 7 in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology journal, said that the prevalence of diabetes and other metabolic NCDs in India, is considerably higher than previous estimates.

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Interestingly, the study found that 136 million people in the country in India could be living with pre-diabetes condition, which means these individuals can convert into diabetics, if quick interventions are not taken-up at a broader public health level.

The reason the study has attracted a lot of attention is due to the alarming picture that was presented by the researchers. “While diabetes epidemic is stabilizing in the more developed states of the country, it is still increasing in most of other states. Thus, there are serious implications for the nation, warranting urgent state-specific policies and interventions to arrest the rapidly rising epidemic of metabolic NCDs in India,” the researchers in the study said.

There is a sizeable population in India at risk of cardiovascular disease and other long-terms organ complications due to metabolic NCDs. “The metabolic NCDs are likely to pose a major public health challenge in the near future. There is also evidence that the NCD epidemic is spreading to rural areas, which lack the health infrastructure needed to effectively diagnose and manage these conditions. This calls for urgent government-level initiatives for prevention and management of NCDs through strengthening of the public health-care system and reorientation of priorities in provision of health care,” the researchers said.

Dubbed as ICMR-INDIAB-17 population-based survey, the research involved collecting data in 2008 and extrapolating it for 2021 by utilizing existing countrywide surveys including National Family Heath Survey (NFHS).

The study, which reiterated the significant burden of NCDs in India, said that the prevalence of other cardiometabolic risk factors such as obesity, hypertension, and dyslipidaemia is uniformly high across the country, particularly in the urban areas.

“The focus should therefore be on implementing interventions to minimise the progression of pre-diabetes to diabetes in states where the diabetes epidemic has yet to peak, and providing optimal care to ensure comprehensive risk factor reduction in individuals with diabetes so as to prevent complications in those states where the epidemic has already stabilized,” the researchers said.