An ICMR-backed study has thrown light on the worrying proportions assumed by lifestyle-related diseases in the country. Published last week in the medical journal, The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, the decade-long study spearheaded by Dr Mohan’s Diabetes Specialist Centre is the biggest representative estimate of metabolic disorders in India. It reveals that more than a tenth of the people in the country have diabetes, 35 per cent have hypertension and 28 per cent have high cholesterol levels. The burden of these disorders is higher in urban areas. But people in rural centres are increasingly becoming vulnerable to metabolic diseases, especially diabetes. There is, for instance, almost no rural-urban divide when it comes to pre-diabetes — more than 60 per cent of pre-diabetic people in India end up having the disease. The study’s warning that the country’s already serious diabetes burden could take a turn for the worst in the next five years should be taken seriously by the country’s healthcare sector.
Most non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including diabetes, were earlier associated with older age groups. But unhealthy diets, inadequate physical activity, exposure to tobacco smoke and alcohol abuse mean that raised blood pressure, increased blood glucose and obesity have begun to show up among the relatively young. Several studies have shown that close to 20 per cent of diabetics in the country are below the age of 45 and nearly 45 per cent of the people with the disease are not senior citizens. These studies have pointed out that the lifestyle-related disease is aggravated by poor awareness, especially in rural areas. In 2019, a collaborative study by the Public Health Foundation of India and research institutes in the US, UK and Germany revealed that only half of those ailing from diabetes in the 15-50 age group were aware of their ailment. Last year, the National NCD Monitoring Survey revealed that 45 per cent of the diabetics in the country were aware of their health condition and only 15 per cent had their blood sugar under control.
The National Health Mission does recognise that the country is experiencing a rapid health transition with NCDs, including lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, surpassing the burden of communicable diseases in the past decade. However, the healthcare sector has not always been alive to the task of bringing about behavioural changes. The NCD monitoring survey, for instance, revealed that the country lacks adequate counselling facilities for diabetics. These caveats and the alarm bells rung by the Lancet study should be heeded urgently. Lifestyle diseases carry an economic cost — the WHO estimates they could cost India $6 trillion by 2030.
