50% Rise In Diabetes Deaths Across India Over 11 Years

With a genetic predisposition brought to the fore by changing lifestyles, deaths due to diabetes increased 50% in India between 2005 and 2015, and is now the seventh most common cause of death in the country, up from the 11th rank in 2005, according to data published by the Global Burden of Disease (GDB).
Ischemic heart disease continues to be the highest cause of death, followed by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cerebrovascular disease, lower respiratory infection, diarrhoeal diseases and tuberculosis.
In 2015, 346,000 people died of diabetes, which caused 3.3% of all deaths that year, with an annual increase of 2.7% from 1990, according to the GDB study.
Nearly 26 people die of diabetes per 100,000 population; diabetes is also one of the top causes of disability and accounts for 2.4% of the disability adjusted life years lost (sum of years lost due to disability or premature death due to the disease).
Source: Global Burden of Disease, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)
There are 69.1 million people with diabetes in India, the second highest number in the world after China, which has 109 million people with diabetes. Of these, 36 million cases remain undiagnosed, according to this 2015 Diabetes Atlas released by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF). Nearly 9% in the age group of 20-79 have diabetes.
The figures are alarming since diabetes is a chronic disease that not just affects the pancreas’ ability to produce insulin but affects the entire body. Complications caused due to diabetes include heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, vision l Continue reading

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‘Diabetes epidemic shifting to urban poor, India needs urgent prevention, screening’

Diabetes, once a disease of the affluent, is now rampant among India’s urban poor too and preventive measures and free screening services are urgently required to control its impact
Diabetes, once a disease of the affluent, is now rampant among India’s urban poor too and preventive measures and free screening services are urgently required to control its impact: this is the recommendation of V Mohan, one of India’s pioneering diabetologists.
Mohan was one of the authors of a 15-state study on diabetes in India funded by the Indian Council of Medical Research and India’s health ministry. The study was published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, on June 7, 2017.
At 16.7%, India had the highest share of the world’s diabetics in 2015 after China (26%), according to Diabetes Atlas 2015. This is the result of sedentary lifestyle and bad food choices, Mohan had told IndiaSpend on June 30, 2015.
It is important to ensure early detection of diabetes – an impairment that reduces the pancreas’ ability to produce insulin, a hormone that regulates blood glucose levels. Uncontrolled diabetes can lead to complications such as heart disease, stroke, kidney failure and vision loss.
Read more | Once-a-month diabetes treatment may replace daily insulin jabs
The 15-state survey showed that 47.3% of the 3,938 respondents identified as having diabetes had not been diagnosed. In 2015, about 52% of India’s 69.2 million diabetics remained undiagnosed, IndiaSpend reported on October 13, 2016.
Except Punjab, more respondents reported prediabetes– high blood glucose that hasn Continue reading

FAIL: Diabetes Medication Isn't Working. So What Does?

9.3% of Americans and 6.5% of Canadians suffer from diabetes. There is a lot of agreement about the medical treatment. But does the treatment work? At least 5 crucial studies have found that it doesn’t.
People with type 2 diabetes are 2-4 times more likely to die from heart disease. But when the authoritative Cochrane group did a systematic review of 20 studies of type 2 diabetics, they found that there was no significant benefit to intensely targeting blood sugar control with drugs for either cardiovascular death or death from any cause. While it did reduce the risk of amputation, retinopathy and nephropathy, it also increased the risk of hypoglycaemia by 30% (Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2011 Jun 15;(6):CD008143).
The same year, a meta-analysis of 13 controlled studies confirmed that there was no significant benefit of drug treatment for cardiovascular death or death from any cause. While at first it looked like drugs may reduce the risk of nonfatal heart attacks, when only the high quality studies were included, that apparent benefit disappeared; however, what now appeared was a 47% increase in the risk of congestive heart failure. So, diabetes drugs did not reduce the risk of death from heart disease, they increased them. They also doubled the risk of severe hypoglycaemia (BMJ 2011 Jul 26;343:d4169).
A third systematic review and meta-analysis included 14 studies of type 2 diabetics. Its negative findings went even further. Not only did diabetes meds confer no benefit for fatal or nonfatal heart attack or stroke nor for death from any cause, this study also found insuff Continue reading

7 Signs You May Have Type 2 Diabetes

Not exercising. Supersize portions. Our love affair with food has taken a drastic turn. The number of Americans with type 2 diabetes—21 million, including adults and children—has risen with the obesity epidemic. Should you or you child get tested? Yes, if you have a family history of the disease and/or any of the following:
You're overweight. Even being just 10 to 15 pounds overweight can increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes. If your child is overweight, make sure his pediatrician tests him, because type 2 diabetes is on the rise in kids. The encouraging news is that losing just 5% to 7% of your body weight can reduce your risk of diabetes, according to research from the Diabetes Prevention Program. Testing usually involves screening your blood for high glucose (sugar) levels. If they're too high, you could have either type 1 or type 2. (See box, right, for explanations of the two types.) Your doctor will most likely be able to sort it out based on your age and symptoms. In some cases, you may also need to see an endocrinologist (specialist).
You're constantly running to the bathroom. "If your body doesn't make enough insulin [a hormone that carries glucose into your cells to give them energy]," which can happen with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, "glucose builds up in your bloodstream and comes out in your urine," explains Janet Silverstein, MD, chief of pediatric endocrinology at the University of Florida. Because you're urinating a lot, you'll probably also be very thirsty and drinking more than usual.
Your vision is blurry. High blood sugar levels cause gluc Continue reading

A wealthier India sees alarming rise in adolescent diabetes

Rohin Sarin is midway through his 9th grade geography class when he starts feeling light-headed and dizzy, a sign that his blood sugar levels are dipping. He quietly removes his insulin pen from his school bag, gives himself one of four daily jabs and takes a bite of an energy bar.
The 15-year-old's classmates in New Delhi have seen the ritual so often they are no longer curious. Rohin is one of a growing number of Indians with diabetes, the disease increasingly afflicting children and adolescents in the fast-growing South Asian country.
More than two decades of rapid economic growth has changed Indians' lifestyles. People eat out more often, and prefer Western-style junk food such as burgers and pizza over traditional lentil and vegetable meals. They are also more sedentary, using cars and public transportation instead of walking or riding bicycles, and entertaining themselves with television.
The changes have brought a sharp rise in obesity, along with lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, even as India still has some of the world's worst levels of malnourishment and stunted childhood growth due to a paucity of food.
"Over the last 20 years, we are seeing a huge explosion ... mainly because of increasing childhood obesity," said Dr. Monica Arora, a specialist with the Public Health Foundation of India.
Nearly 30 percent of India's teenagers are obese, nearly twice the number in 2010, according to health ministry statistics.
India has 70 million diabetics, though it has no data on how many are children and likely has millions more cases that haven't been diagnosed due to sp Continue reading