For rich and poor Indians alike, diabetes epidemic shows no sign of abating

India’s economic development has brought higher incomes–and a large helping of diabetes.

As salaries have increased, and all socio-economic groups have experienced a rise in living standards, diabetes–a condition caused by the body’s inability to regulate insulin-levels, which can lead to tissue damage and organ failure–became the country’s fastest growing disease burden over 16 years to 2016.

India currently represents 49% of the world’s diabetes burden, with an estimated 72 million cases in 2017, a figure expected to almost double to 134 million by 2025. This presents a serious public health challenge to a country facing a future of high population growth and a government attempting to provide free health insurance to half a billion people.

More money, more problems

Diabetes prevalence has increased by 64% across India over the past quarter century, according to a November 2017 report by the Indian Council for Medical Research, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, both research institutes, and the Public Health Foundation of India, an advocacy.

Taxes on sugary beverages are not enough to halt march of obesity in Asia

Facing declining markets in Western countries, multinational food companies are targeting Africa, Asia, and Latin America as new consumers of packaged foods, in a move that may worsen the global epidemic of chronic illness related to diabetes. Governments are striking back at obesity risk factors, including unhealthy foods. Singapore, which might have as many as one million residents with diabetes by 2050, now requires soda producers to reduce sugar content. Obesity and other lifestyle-related diseases have now become a “silent’ long-term challenge that will cost governments in healthcare liabilities and lost productivity.

But improving public health requires more than piecemeal legislation; governments must promote lifestyle changes through education and improve access to healthy foods.
Not a ‘rich only’ disease

Across Asia, rural populations accustomed to active farming jobs are migrating in increasing numbers to urban areas, where they occupy more sedentary manufacturing or service sector jobs. Due to time constraints and easy availability of affordable high-calorie foods, these migrant populations are also changing their eating habits. A recently published study of 98,000 adults in China argues that linking obesity only to affluence is simplistic, and that geographic variations in China’s "nutritional transition” explain differences in public health.
READ MORE