A recent study by a team from the Indian Council of Medical Research (Icmr) found that 8.1% of those surveyed inGujarat, as part of the nationwide survey, were found to be diabetic, and 10.5% were prediabetic.
The findings were part of the recently-published ‘Metabolic non-communicable disease Health report of India: the ICMR-INDIAB national cross-sectional study’ or ICMR-INDIAB-17 byRanjit Mohan Anjanaand others. The study was published in The Lancet’s Diabetes and Endocrinology journal.
The findings indicated that prevalence of hypertension was 28.5%, general obesity 23.5% and abdominal obesity 30.6% in Gujarat. All these were found to be lower than the national Average. An earlier study from 2017 covering several Indian states including Gujarat by the same team had found prevalence of diabetes to be 7%, a slight increase of 1.1 Percentage points in six years.
City-based experts said that medical practice indicates much higher prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) than the survey’s numbers. They said the disparity may be due to the methodology employed.