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Contribution of strokes, epilepsy to disease burden doubled in 3 decades: Lancet

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Aditi Tandon

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Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 14

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The contribution of non-communicable and injury-related neurological disorders such as strokes and epilepsy to the total disease burden more than doubled in India from 1990 to 2019, whereas the contribution of communicable neurological disorders reduced during this period by three-quarters.

The first comprehensive estimates of disease burden from neurological disorders and their trends in every Indian state from 1990 to 2019, published in The Lancet Global Health by the India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative on Wednesday, reveal stroke, headache disorders and epilepsy are the leading contributors to neurological disorders burden in India.

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The study covered non-communicable neurological disorders (stroke, headache disorders, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, brain and central nervous system cancer, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, motor neuron diseases and other neurological disorders); communicable neurological disorders (encephalitis, meningitis, and tetanus) and injury-related neurological disorders (traumatic brain injuries and spinal cord injuries).

Stroke caused 6,99,000 deaths in 2019, which was 7.4 per cent of the total deaths in the country.

The paper shows the contribution of non-communicable neurological disorders to total disability adjusted life years (loss of one year of health due to disease) in India doubled from 4 per cent in 1990 to 8.2 per cent in 2019 and the contribution of injury-related neurological disorders increased from 0.2 per cent to 0.6 per cent. Conversely, the share of communicable neurological disorders fell from 4.1 per cent to 1.1 per cent.

“In 2019, the largest contributors to the total neurological disorder DALYs in India were stroke (37.9 per cent); headache disorders (17.5 per cent); epilepsy (11.3 per cent); cerebral palsy (5.7 per cent); and encephalitis (5.3 per cent).

In 2019, the leading risk factors contributing to DALYs due to non-communicable neurological disorders in India included high systolic blood pressure, air pollution, dietary risks, high fasting plasma glucose and high body mass index.

Authors (Prof Gagandeep Singh of Dayanand Medical College, Ludhiana, is the study’s lead author), approved by the ICMR, found the burden of non-communicable neurological disorders was increasing mainly due to ageing of the population.

“While communicable diseases contributed to the majority of total neurological disorders burden in children younger than five years, non-communicable neurological disorders were the highest contributor in all other age groups,” states the research.

For communicable disorders, the identified risk factors with modest contributions to DALYs were low birth weight and short gestation and air pollution.

INSET: EXPERT QUOTE

Balram Bhargava, director general, icmr: “This research paper provides the first consolidated estimates on the burden of most neurological disorders for every state of India from 1990 to 2019. Neurological disorders contribute 10 per cent of the total disease burden in India. There is a growing burden of non-communicable neurological disorders in the country, mainly attributable to ageing. The findings are useful for health-care planning.”

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