India has 50.8 million diabetics: IDF

China comes a distant second with 43.2 million diabetic patients, and the U.S. has 26.8 million people suffering from the disease, as per the latest IDF data.

By the turn of 2010, almost 7 percent of the population between the age group of 20 to 79 in India will have diabetes, warned the IDF. The figure is likely to get worse by 2030 when an estimated 9 percent of the adult population in India would be suffering from the dreaded disease.

Blame it on a sedentary lifestyle
Increase in life expectancy and urbanization have been cited as the primary reasons for this inflation in diabetes in the IDF report. Various studies have already established that the high incidence of diabetes in India is due to sedentary lifestyle, lack of physical activity, obesity, stress and consumption of diets rich in fat, sugar and calories.

The report warned, "Evidence suggests that in more affluent parts of the country, the rural prevalence is higher than in less affluent rural areas, indicating that increasing economic growth will raise diabetes prevalence in India even more than these possibly conservative estimates have indicated.''

Incidence of IGT alarming
The number of Indians with the pre-diabetic condition of impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) is too high for comfort. An estimated 39.5 million people are likely to have IGT in 2010. By 2030, the number of people with the condition will rise to 64.1 million.
Dr. A. Ramachandran of India Diabetes Research Foundation, Chennai, opined that developing countries like India should adopt a primary prevention program to fight the epidemic, akin to what the developed countries follow.

“In developed countries, they have used primary prevention in people with IGT and found that an almost seven per cent reduction in weight has meant 58 per cent reduction in the risk of getting diabetes,” Dr. Ramachandran said.

He noted that simple guidelines, such as routine walk and sugar-free beverages, can have monumental results and can reduce the incidence of IGT big time.

Financial implications
The rampaging diabetes will entail a huge economic cost in the country, not only by way of the money spent on diabetes control measures, which is estimated to be $2.8 billion annually by 2010, but also by way of lost productivity.

"Diabetes imposes a large economic burden on the individual, national healthcare system and economy. Healthcare expenditures on diabetes are expected to account for 11.6 per cent of the total healthcare expenditure in the world in 2010,'' the report said.

Diabetes Mellitus
Diabetes mellitus, simply referred to as diabetes, is a condition in which the body either does not produce enough, or does not properly respond to, insulin, a hormone produced in the pancreas.

Insulin essentially enables the cells to absorb glucose in the body and turn it into energy. The condition of diabetes leads to accumulation of glucose in the blood leading to various complications including cardiovascular disease, chronic renal failure, retinal damage and several types of nerve damage.