According to a survey published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal, the largest epidemiological study on diabetes and non-communicable diseases (NCDs), an estimated 101 million people had diabetes in India, in 2021, 136 million had prediabetes, and 315 million had hypertension.
A study conducted by the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF) also found that India stood at 28.6 per cent for generalised obesity and 39.5 per cent for abdominal obesity in 2021.
Goa has the highest number of people with diabetes (26.4 per cent), Uttar Pradesh had the lowest (4.8 per cent), while Sikkim had the highest number of people with prediabetes (31.3 per cent) and Mizoram (6.8 per cent) showed the lowest. Punjab (51.8 per cent) had the highest number of hypertension patients, while Meghalaya (24.3 per cent) had the lowest.
The rise of diabetes in India is mainly due to the lifestyle choices– stress levels, diet and physical activity. The survey also showed that 81.2 per cent have dyslipidemia, which is an imbalance of lipids such as cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides and high-density lipoprotein. In many states, the ratio of diabetes to prediabetes has been less than one.
The rapid transition of diabetes and metabolic NCDs in India has brought serious implications, which calls for urgent state-specific policies and interventions to combat these diseases in India.