Diabetes and impaired glucose levels have been found to be high in adults, whereas the level of awareness, treatment and control in India is still very low. Researchers from the Indian Council of Medical Research-National Center for Disease Informatics (ICMR-NCDIR), Bangalore gave this information.
A research paper released on 14 March in the international journal, Frontiers in Public Health, presented a comprehensive picture of diabetes in India. In this research paper titled ‘Diabetes Care Cascade in India’, information and evidence have been given regarding the awareness of people towards diabetes in the country.
The survey highlighted how conscious people are about diabetes in India and the measures taken for the prevalence, prevention and management of diabetes available in public health facilities will prove to be inadequate in the days to come.
Demand to identify and monitor such people in the survey
National NCD Surveillance Survey led by ICMR-NCDIR with support from Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India seeks to examine evidence to address gaps in diabetes care, identify and monitor population groups deprived of diabetes . This is a major effort towards stopping the increasing number of diabetics by 2025. Under this, 9,721 adults in the age group of 18-69 years were surveyed across the country in 2017-18.
More in women and urban adults
The survey shows that diabetes is more prevalent among women and urban adults. The survey found old age, obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol as the leading causes of diabetes. The survey said that 9.3% of adults in India were found to be suffering from diabetes. Of them, 45.8% were aware of their diabetes status, 36.1% were under treatment and 15.7% had control of their diabetes.
Worrying condition of rural areas
The survey reported that the prevalence of diabetes was twice as high in urban areas (14.3%) as compared to rural areas (6.9%). However, Dr. Prashant Mathur, Director of ICMR-NCDIR and lead author of the study, said that awareness and treatment information among rural adults is worrisome compared to urban adults.
Diabetes was found to be more in women (10.2%) than men (8.5%) in the survey, but the majority of these were women (6.0%) who had recently had diabetes. In addition, 44.2% of adults with elevated cholesterol and 16.3% of adults with high blood pressure also had diabetes.