Vol. 1, Issue 2 (2012)

Author(s):
K.P. Sampath Kumar*, Debjit bhowmik, Shweta Srivastava, Shravan Paswan, Amit sankar Dutta

Abstract:
India, the world’s second most populous country, now has more people with type 2 diabetes (more than 50 million) than any other nation. With India having the highest number of diabetic patients in the world, the sugar disease is posing an enormous health problem in the country. Calling India the diabetes capital of the world, the International Journal of Diabetes in Developing Countries says that there is alarming rise in. According to a WHO fact sheet on diabetes, 2004 recorded an estimated 3.4 million deaths due to consequences of high blood sugar. WHO also estimates that 80 per cent of diabetes deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries and projects that such deaths will double between 2005 and 2030. A glance at statistics from Global Data proves one point: that the two countries having the highest diabetes prevalence (India and China) score quite low when it comes to the expenditure on the disease. In fact, India's expenditure on diabetes does not figure among the top 10 countries at all. The situation is compounded by the fact that diabetes is one of the most costly health problems in the world. It is  points out that healthcare expenditure on diabetes accounted for 11.6 per cent of the total healthcare expenditure worldwide in 2010. Diabetes also imposes large economic burdens in the form of lost productivity and foregone economic growth. It has been estimated that the global burden of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) for 2010 would be 285million people (2010) which is projected to increase to 438 million in 2030; a 65 % increase . Similarly, for India this increase is estimated to be 58%, from 51 million people in 2010 to 87 million in 2030. The impacts of T2DM are considerable: as a lifelong disease, it increases morbidity and mortality and decreases the quality of life. At the same time, the disease and its complications cause a heavy economic burden for diabetic patients themselves, their families and society. A better understanding about the cause of a predisposition of Indians to get T2DM is necessary for future planning of healthcare, policy and delivery in order to ensure that the burdens of disease are addressed.