The prevalence of diabetes in India is 11.4 percent, while 35.5 percent and 15.3 percent of people have hypertension and prediabetes, respectively, according to findings of a nationwide survey published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal.
The largest epidemiological study on diabetes and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) estimated that in 2021, there were 101 million people with diabetes, 136 million with prediabetes and 315 million with high blood pressure in India.
The study, conducted by the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF) in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and funded by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, also found that the prevalence of generalized obesity and abdominal obesity remained unchanged in India. to 28.6 and 39.5 percent.
An estimate shows that 254 million people in India had generalized obesity and 351 million had abdominal obesity in 2021. In 2017, the team found that the prevalence of diabetes in India was around 7.5 percent, which means the burden has increased by more than 50 percent since then.
Among the states, Goa (26.4 percent) had the highest prevalence of diabetes and Uttar Pradesh (4.8 percent) had the lowest, while Sikkim (31.3 percent) and Mizoram (6.8 percent) had the highest and lowest burden of prediabetes, respectively. .
Punjab (51.8 percent) had the highest prevalence of hypertension, while Meghalaya (24.3 percent) had the highest burden, the researchers said.
“The steep rise in NCDs can be attributed mainly to people’s lifestyles such as diet, physical activity, stress levels, etc. The positive news is that interventions can be used to curb this trend. Our study has a number of implications for health care planning and delivery in India, ” Dr. R. M. Anjana, President, MDRF.
“The diabetes epidemic in India is in transition, with some states already peaking while others are just beginning. These states may see an increase in prevalence over the next 3-5 years before plateauing,” Anjana, lead author of the study, said.
The results, assessing the burden of NCDs in the states, are based on a survey of 1,13,043 (over 1.1 akh) people (33,537 urban and 79,506 rural), across 31 states and union territories in the country between 2008 and 2020. .
The survey also found that an alarming 81.2% have dyslipidemia – an imbalance of lipids such as cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), triglycerides and high-density lipoprotein (HDL).
All metabolic NCDs except prediabetes were more common in urban than rural areas. In many countries with a lower human development index, the ratio of diabetes to prediabetes was less than 1.
“The results of our study have multiple implications for health care planning and delivery in India,” said V. Mohan, Chairman of the Diabetes Specialties Center (DMDSC) and MDRF Dr. Mohana.
“State governments in India, which are primarily responsible for health care delivery in their respective regions, will be particularly interested in detailed data on these NCDs at the state level, as this will enable them to develop evidence-based interventions to successfully halt disease progression. NCDs and manage their complications,” Mohan, lead author of the study, said in a statement.
The team, including researchers from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, conducted the survey in several phases with a stratified multiphase sampling design, using a three-level stratification based on geography, population size and socioeconomic status of each state. .
“The prevalence of diabetes and other metabolic NCDs in India is substantially higher than previously estimated. While the diabetes epidemic is stabilizing in the more developed states of the country, it is still increasing in most other states,” the study authors said.
