1 person dies of diabetes every seven seconds

DC CORRESPONDENT

Published AprApr 19, 2015, 11:22 am IST

updated Jan 10, 2016, 8:38 am IST

In India, one in every 10 is diagnosed with diabetes

Chennai: We usually see the doctors saying diabetes is not a disease and the person with diabetes can lead a more healthy life than a normal person if sugar levels are kept in control. Yes, it is true that diabetes is not a disease and just a metabolic syndrome. But, the latest diabetes numbers released by International Diabetes Federation in the year 2014 observe that a patient is dying every 7 seconds due to diabetes complication.

Delivering a lecture on “Health and Environment” at State-level conference held at Madras Medical Mission (MMM) college of Health Sciences on Saturday, Dr. Nagaraj Manickam, scientist at Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF), said, quoting sixth edition IDF world diabetes atlas, that the burden of diabetes is increasing globally at an alarming pace. By 2035, there will be around 592 million people with diabetes from current 387 million, which is a steep increase of 53 percent. 

In India, one in every 10 is diagnosed with diabetes and half of the people with diabetes in South-East Asia are undiagnosed. What will happen if a person is having diabetes? The scientist said its impact on the economy is enormous. Diabetes caused at least $612 billion dollars in health expenditure in 2014 – 11% of total spending on adults.  

Due to last of awareness, more than 79,000 children developed type 1 diabetes in 2013. 

More than 21 million live births were affected by diabetes during pregnancy in 2013 and 77 percent of people with diabetes live in low-and-middle income countries. Diabetes caused 4.9 million deaths in 2014. Dr. Manickam said inadequate knowledge on food content, high-calorie intake, sedentary lifestyle have increased the risk of Type 2 

diabetes. 

“It is everyone’s responsibility to have good healthy foods to reduce the burden of diabetes and diabetic related complications”.On the research front, the scientist said recently, novel polymorphisms or genetic variants at six different loci associated with Type 2 diabetes were identified in South Asian people.  These discoveries will give additional insight into the mechanism of the disease.  However, it is really a big task to control Type 2 diabetes by gene therapy.