Diabetes epidemic
November 14, 2011
Long working hours and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and India's many other metropolises are causing alarming health problems.
Over and over again, doctors hear the same stories from their diabetes patients: They have no time to do sport, to go shopping and cook and eat healthy food. They have taken to ordering fast food at their desks.
More often than not, they chase down the burgers and pizzas that have become so popular among India's increasingly Westernized middle classes with Coke.
A booming economy is at risk
Since Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha launched India’s free market reforms in 1991, the economy has boomed, with an average annual growth of about 8 percent over the past few years. The developing country’s GDP has quadrupled over two decades and illiteracy rates have fallen.
However, experts fear that this progress could all be reversed if the threat of a diabetes epidemic is not addressed urgently. The country’s younger generation is particularly at risk, with the average diabetes patient being diagnosed at the age of 42.5.
According to World Bank estimates, India loses over 23 billion US dollars a year to diseases such as diabetes or coronary heart disease. Without this, economic growth could increase by up to 4 percent.
However, Hermann von Lilienfeld, the deputy director of the German Diabetic Union, is not optimistic about the future, saying that the whole economy is likely to suffer under the burden. "The health system needs to be transformed alongside the change in lifestyle but this represents a great challenge for a developing country so one has to remain sceptical."
Health system is already struggling
India is already struggling to deal with diseases that have long been eradicated in the West, such as malaria, polio, tuberculosis and leprosy. On top of this, the health system now has to cope with diabetes, which is often not diagnosed or treated because so few of India’s over a billion inhabitants have health insurance or can afford expensive drugs.
Dr K.K. Aggarwal has received many awards for his research into diabetes and is worried about the future. "If it continues to spread, we will have the most blind people in the world, the most cardiovascular problems and the most amputations. There are still no diabetes monitoring programs in India. There are pilot projects that deal separately with cardiovascular disease, noncommunicable diseases and obesity, but these need to be combined or else nothing will change."
Von Lilienfeld explains why diabetes is so treacherous: "There is a nice phrase that those who are later affected say to themselves: "Sugar can't hurt, it can’t be that bad…" But the problem is that the disease develops while one does not notice the sugar – heart problems, strokes, eye or kidney problems. By the time you can’t see anymore, it's too late." Losing one's sight or a limb is often accompanied by a loss of dignity in India, with patients losing all hope of independence.
Aware of the risks, the Indian government recently announced it would increase the health budget from less than 1 percent of GDP to 3 percent by 2012. Experts warn that the consequences of a diabetics epidemic could be worse than those of climate change.
Author: Priya Esselborn / act
Editor: Shamil Shams