Growing epidemic: The Hindu Editorial on diabetes and India
From around 200 million in 1990, the number of people with diabetes has quadrupled globally to over 800 million in 2022 while the global diabetes prevalence in adults rose from 7% to 14% between 1990 and 2022, as in data released in The Lancet on November 13. At 212 million, India has the highest number of people with diabetes as against China’s prevalence of 148 million. India also topped the list of countries with 133 million people over the age of 30 years with untreated diabetes as against 78 million in China. One reason for the steep increase in the number of those with diabetes was the methodology used for pooling and analysing the data — being on medication for diabetes, or having a fasting plasma glucose of 7·0 mmol/L or more, or an HbA1c of 6·5% or more. Unlike earlier studies tha...