The rising burden of metabolic diseases in India is now becoming a serious public health concern. A recently released study has made this situation even clearer. According to the report, India has now reached the first position in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of deaths and Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) related to Type 2 diabetes.
Experts from 11 countries participated in this study, and data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) were analyzed. The findings revealed that in 1990, the highest number of Type 2 diabetes cases were recorded in China, followed by India, Indonesia, Japan, and Pakistan. At that time, India was in second place.
But by 2023, the picture has completely changed. India has now surpassed China to become the country with the highest number of cases of this disease. This shift indicates that lifestyle and health-related risks have increased rapidly in the country over the past few decades.
The study also states that both India and China bear the highest burden of five major metabolic diseases in the Asia-Pacific region—Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, increasing Body Mass Index (BMI), bad cholesterol, and fatty liver-related problems.
According to experts, this situation points to the fact that changing lifestyles, poor diet, and lack of physical activity are becoming the primary reasons for the rise in these diseases, which requires immediate attention.
Experts say that the situation of metabolic diseases in India is becoming extremely worrying. According to Anoop Misra, the lead author of this study, India has now reached the first position in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of disease burden and deaths caused by Type 2 diabetes. Meanwhile, China ranks first in cases of the other four major metabolic diseases, while India remains in second place.
Anoop Misra stated that the latest figures for 2023 show that India is bearing the largest burden of metabolic diseases in this entire region. Specifically, Type 2 diabetes has had a deep impact on the country.
According to the data, more than 2.1 crore people are affected by Type 2 diabetes alone in India, and about 5.8 lakh deaths have been recorded due to it. These figures clearly illustrate the severity and rapidly growing impact of this disease.
Experts believe that if lifestyle and health habits are not changed in time, this problem could take an even more serious form in the future.
Experts also clarified that problems like diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol, and fatty liver are not separate but interconnected conditions. The main cause of all these diseases is often poor eating habits and lack of physical activity.
The impact of these diseases is not limited to these alone; they can lead to serious health problems in the future. These include kidney failure, heart attack, heart failure, serious liver diseases, stroke (paralysis), and various types of cancer.
According to the study data, 21,345,118 cases of Type 2 diabetes were recorded in India in the year 2023, in which 578,367 people died. Meanwhile, 10,940,382 cases and 172,911 deaths were recorded in China for the same disease.
Talking about the entire Asia-Pacific region, nearly 4.9 crore cases of Type 2 diabetes were reported in 2023, of which about 54.1 percent of patients were male. The highest health burden in this region was found to be associated with high blood pressure, which caused approximately 13.8 crore disease-burden years and nearly 62.7 lakh deaths.
Following this, overweight and obesity, bad cholesterol, Type 2 diabetes, and fatty liver-related diseases emerged as the major causes. The report also stated that between 1990 and 2023, the total disease burden of these diseases increased by about 1.7 to 3.7 times.
Experts estimate that if this trend continues, the burden of these metabolic diseases could increase further by the year 2030, with high blood pressure remaining the largest cause.
