New Delhi: The latest National Family Health Survey-4 (NFHS) conducted across India has found that more than a fifth of the country’s 1.25 billion population suffers from diabetes and hypertension.
The overall incidence of diabetes in the country is 20.3 per cent and that of hypertension 22.2 per cent, the survey revealed on Tuesday evening.
Conducted in 2015-16, the NFHS-4 survey recorded data from 600,000 households and covered a total of 700,000 women and 130,000 men from 26 states and union territories of India.
Often known as the diabetes capital of the world, India has been witnessing an alarming rise in incidence of diabetes.
According to the International Diabetes Federation Atlas 2015, an estimated 69.2 million Indians are diabetic, which as per the WHO assessment, stood at 63 million in the year 2013.
The Federation estimates 415 million people have diabetes in the world at present.
According to official World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates, the total global diabetic population in the year 2000 stood at 171 million, but was estimated to have spiked to a whopping 366 million by the turn of the decade.
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India had an estimated 31.705 million diabetics in the millennium year, which is estimated to grow by more than 100 per cent to 79.441 million by 2030.
The estimates depict that prevalence of diabetes has alarmingly doubled and so far has grown by more than 100 per cent in the past 15 years.
WHO representative to India Henk Bekadam recently shared his opinion on how India could prevent diabetes.
“Simple lifestyle measures have been shown to be effective in preventing or delaying the onset of type 2 diabetes: achieve and maintain healthy body weight, be physically active, eat a healthy diet, and avoid tobacco use. Early screening, increased access to health care services, affordable diagnosis and treatment and patient empowerment for self-management are key components of the control of diabetes,” Bekadam said.
Leading cause of death
Recently, the union government revealed that as many as 346,000 people died of diabetes in 2015, up from 224,000 in 2005, with the deadly disease climbing to the seventh position on the list of causes of deaths in the country.
The increase in numbers from 2005 to 2015 has led to diabetes shifting from 11th position to seventh in terms of causes of death, Minister of State for Health Faggan Singh Kulaste said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha (Upper House of Parliament) in February.
According to Kulaste, the prevalence of diabetes in the country was nearly 70 million in 2015. Doctors feel it is indeed a matter of grave concern as one in five people in India are predisposed to diabetes due to their lifestyle.
“What is alarming is the fact that India is home to 63 million diabetics and the number is estimated to be 100 million by 2030. The situation is scary. It is time the government and the local policymakers take appropriate action towards diabetes control, delay and management,” weight management and nutrition expert Dr Shilpa Arora told Gulf News.
It is believed that patient adherence to medication and lifestyle modifications play an important role in diabetes management and this can help them lead a normal life.
“Diabetes is a chronic medical condition, that is, it can be curbed at the initial level by introducing lifestyle changes and controlled after its incidence through medicines in early stages and administration of external insulin in advanced stages. It is not something entirely uncurable,“ endocrinologist Dr Kailash Verma said.
Looming threat
Medical practitioners say policymakers may be under-prioritising the looming threat of diabetes in India.
“Although the Indian urban population has access to reliable screening methods and anti-diabetic-medications, such health benefits are not often available to the rural patients. There is a disproportionate allocation of health resources between urban and rural areas as far as diabetes control and management is concerned,“ Dr Arora said.
According to experts, diabetes is a kind of metabolic ailment wherein either the body is incapable of producing insulin or the cells are not able to respond to insulin efficiently.
“Obesity is one of the main causes of diabetes apart from other lifestyle factors. As a diabetes patient, I can say this with conviction that a lower weight can roughly indicate a lesser possibility of diabetes in a person,“ says banker Abhinav Chandra.
“What was once majorly perceived as a western phenomenon has now crept deep into Asian lifestyles. As cultures switch from their diets to different foods, their rate of diabetes increases. Junk food is the killer in this sense,“ software engineer and a diabetes patient Ravi Mitra said.