India Faces Diabetes "Tsunami," Conference Told

NEW DELHI - India, which has close to 41 million diabetic patients, faces a diabetes "tsunami," the World Health Organization warned at the weekend during an international conference on the illness known as the "silent disease."

"The number is growing at a steady pace," said Samlee Plianbangchang, head of the WHO Southeast Asia, calling on India to take urgent action against what he called a "diabetic tsunami" with the number of Indian cases projected to hit 70 million by 2025.

"If appropriate public health action is not initiated, disability and premature deaths from heart disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases will grow by more than 21 percent over the next 10 years in the Southeast Asia Region," he added.

The surging problem in India, which has the most diabetes cases globally, as well as in other Asian countries is linked to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle as a result of rising affluence, a carbohydrate-heavy diet and possibly genetic factors, researchers say.

The WHO official's comments came as global health experts, health ministers and national health authorities from Southeast Asian countries met Saturday in the southern Indian city of Chennai for a conference aimed at devising ways to combat diabetes, which has more than 56 million sufferers in the region.

The conference, organized by the World Diabetes Foundation in collaboration with the WHO and other groups, called diabetes "one of the most significant public health challenges of the 21st century."

Highlighting the difficulties facing India was a study presented to the conference of poor rural population in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, which found that over 34 percent of people aged between 36 and 50 and 50 percent who were 50 years or older had diabetes or pre-diabetes.

Sri Lanka's Health Minister Nimal Sripala De-Silva told the conference "between 30 percent to 80 percent of diabetics in the Southeast Asia region are unaware they have the disease."

Meanwhile, the global number of diabetes cases stands to rocket unless obesity is brought under control and lifestyles change, speakers told the conference.

There are now 246 million diabetes sufferers worldwide with India ranked first in the number of cases, China second with 40 million -- forecast to reach 59 million by 2025, and the U.S. third with 19 million cases and expected to touch 25 million by 2025.

The illness, caused when the pancreas does not make enough insulin or when the body cannot properly use the insulin it produces, damages the heart, eyesight, nerves and kidneys. It was responsible for 3.8 million deaths globally in 2007 -- representing 6 percent of world mortality, the same figure as for HIV/AIDS, according to the WHO.

Adult-onset diabetes is associated with health problems such as inactive lifestyles, smoking, poor eating habits, liquor and overweight in addition to aging populations.

"Unless preventive measures are taken, an estimated 380 million people worldwide will have diabetes by 2025, with the largest increase occurring in developing countries," said the WHO's Plianbangchang. And officials warned that this number could well fall short of the actual number.

The forecasts "are conservative because they take into account only aging and urbanization but not obesity," said WHO diabetes program expert Gojka Roglic.

The trend toward increasing obesity "if unarrested, will lead to more cases," said Roglic.

Diabetes also is affecting younger people in South-East Asia at "alarming rates," the WHO said. Governments in the region need to wake up to the problem or face a heavy financial burden, the conference was told.

"Along with other non-communicable diseases it [diabetes] is still neglected on many national health agendas and by policymakers. If left unchecked, diabetes and its associated complications can result in alarming social and economic consequences for the region," warned Martin Sillink, president of the International Diabetes Federation.

According to the WHO, diabetes threatens to have a crippling effect on the budgets of Asian nations and could cost the larger economies up to $500 billion each over the next decade, mainly as a result of lost productivity and premature deaths.

In India, the estimated annual cost to treat a person with diabetes is around $460, soaring by 48 percent for those with complications. In fact in the region, diabetes treatment may consume up to 15 to 25 percent of monthly household incomes.

"Those who require the most advanced, expensive care for diabetes-related complications are often the people least able to afford it who may have to borrow money for treatment, thus entering a cycle of debt with disastrous consequences to the individuals, their families and society," the WHO warned.

Makers of diabetes drugs in India registered a sharp increase of 17 percent in their sales as more and more companies are engaging in launching new anti-diabetes drugs (PharmAsia News, Oct. 20, 2008).

- Ed Lane ([email protected])