
‘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.
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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
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