Chandigarh set to become diabetes capital, finds study conducted by ICMR

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 8

A pan-India survey on the burden of diabetes has shown that Chandigarh is on course to becoming the country’s diabetes capital while Punjab is a close second. Punjab has emerged the national leader in obesity, hypertension and dyslipidemia, all risk factors for major non-communicable diseases.

ICMR’s (Indian Council of Medical Research) India Diabetes Study, a door-to-door survey of men and women above 20 years of age is the first national study by the government to determine the exact national prevalence of diabetes and pre-diabetes in India by calculating state-wise prevalence.

Discussing the findings on World Health Day (whose theme this year is diabetes control) today, ICMR chief Soumya Swaminathan said: “We have found wide regional variations in the prevalence of diabetes and pre-diabetes in India. Meghalaya has the lowest diabetes prevalence at 4.5%, while Chandigarh has the highest at 13.6%, followed by Punjab at 9.8%. Pre-diabetes prevalence is also the highest for Chandigarh at 14.6 per cent and the lowest for Mizoram at 5.8%.”

Results are currently available for 15 states with the ICMR set to cover the remaining 13 states soon. In every state, the sample size was 4,000 (2,800 rural plus 1,200 urban). Findings show Punjab as the most obese and hypertensive on account of its prosperity and consumption patterns. Punjab has the highest prevalence of both generalised and abdominal obesity at 40.5 and 57.2%, respectively. Four in every 10 (44%) people in Punjab reported hypertension, the highest in India.

Even for dyslipimedia (high fats in bloodstream), Punjab has the highest prevalence (92.3%) among the 15 states for which data has been revealed. If unmanaged, dyslipimedia can cause heart disease, heart attack, peripheral artery disease or stroke.

“Being prosperous states, Chandigarh and Punjab have reported high diabetes, obesity and blood pressure prevalence. What is more worrying is the high burden of pre-diabetes with Chandigarh topping the chart,” Swaminathan said calling for a policy to regulate salt and sugar levels in foods in the presence of Health Minister JP Nadda at an event yesterday.

ICMR’s Tanvir Kaur, who led the study, said it showed worrying levels of physical inactivity across urban and rural India. “While 68.2% of urban subjects were found physically inactive, the percentage for rural India was 52.4. This explains why India is set to be the world diabetes capital,” she said. The states surveyed so far are: Chandigarh (UT), Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat, Mizoram, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Arunachal, Manipur and Meghalaya.