Sugar bomb ticking in India

Hyderabad: People living in cities are six times more prone to get diabetes than persons living in rural areas. The number of diabetics in India is likely to rise to 101 million by 2030, estimates the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Presently, there are 70 million diabetics in India and another 80 million more in the pre-diabetes stage.According to a survey conducted by Apollo Munich Health Insurance, along with Nielsen India Pvt Ltd, covering 8 lakh corporate health insurance customers across the country, the incidence of diabetes is nine times higher for ageing Indian workforce.

The findings suggest that the incidence of diabetes takes a huge leap by 20% in age bracket 46-60 years amongst the corporate workforce, as compared to those between the age brackets 36-45 years.

Alarmingly, the incidence is 50% higher for those in the age bracket of 56-60 years. The erratic and long working hours of corporate India is painting a gruesome picture with 1 in 5 employees suffering from either diabetes or hypertension, resulting in higher risk of developing life-threatening diseases at a later stage.

The research findings revealed that people are fairly aware of the causes of, and ways to control, diabetes, but fail to follow a healthy lifestyle.

Despite understanding how diabetes occurs, only 19% respondents attend a gym/yoga/Zumba classes to remain healthy and 61% skip their breakfast and compensate with a heavier lunch, leading to the growing incidence of Type 2 diabetes.

“The evidence of growing diabetics is more acute amongst the working population in corporate India. The average length of stay in a hospital for a diabetes- related complication is seven days as compared to 4.5 days of hospital stay for other diseases.

Diabetes is slowly affecting corporate India by impairing the productivity of its workforce, increasing absenteeism at work and also affecting the quality of life of its people,” said Jacob Antony Jacob, CEO, Apollo Munich Health Insurance.