Roughly, Maharashtra has as many people with diabetes as Mumbai’s population of 1.2 million during the 2001 census. India has been infamously called the world’s diabetes capital on the basis of sporadic surveys conducted in various cities.
This study, INDIAB, started two years ago with the support of the Indian Council for Medical Research ( ICMR) by the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation and several regional collaborators.
Results of the first phase covering 4,000 people each from Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand were revealed at the ongoing 10th International Symposium of Diabetes in the city. While 8% of Maharashtra suffers from diabetes, 10.6% of Tamil Nadu and 7.2% of Jharkhand’s population has insulin imbalance.
"The study included people over 20 years of age because India is in such a grip of diabetes that it’s difficult to find a normal person over 60 years," said Chennai-based principal investigator Dr V Mohan while reading out the phase 1 results on Saturday. He added that diabetes would do to India what HIV had done to Africa in socioeconomic terms.
Endocrinologist Shashank Joshi, who was the co-investigator for Maharashtra study, said, "What is most worrying is the growing prevalence of the disease in the rural sector."