WHO says that diabetes is the leading cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and lower-limb amputation across the world. In a recent report, ICMR stated that there are upwards of 10 crore diabetics & almost 14 crore pre-diabetic patients in India. I lost my father to this disease. He had a stroke, and then successive kidney failures. We lost everything trying to save him, but it was all futile.
It’s not a sudden going away when it comes to diabetes, it’s a life-long, painfully slow and excruciatingly dilapidating disease. It is also, hereditary, meaning it is passed through the generations. It ‘runs’ in the family, as we say. And thus, I am paranoid about it, because I saw my father suffer. I get my blood work done every six months or so, obsessively. It’s an uneasy existence, something I would not want to pass down to my future generations. But you know what’s funny, it’s not in my hand. I can refrain from sugar & desserts as much as I want, if I have lost the genetic lottery, I will get it no matter what.
As per the ICMR research, there is a diabetic in every third household in India. Yes, one in three. And we take it ever so lightly. Covid hit the diabetics ever so worse. A compromised immune system is a terrible way to deal with multiple threats. So they very well all be suffering from long COVID-19, I don’t know. But it won’t surprise me if they did.
Here’s some more data to support my doomsplaining:
A study of more than 113,000 people also found that around 15% of Indians were pre-diabetic and around 35% have hypertension. It was conducted between October 2008 and December 2020 across 31 Indian states and territories.
- Cases have increased by 44% in the past 4 years.
- Goa tops the list of the most diabetic patients in a state with 26.5%, Puducherry a close second with 26.3%, and Kerala takes the third position with 25.5%.
Combine this with the extremely low awareness of diabetes amongst the poorer and rural populations, and we have an ongoing health catastrophe in the making. Most of our population is either unaware of the danger they are facing, or there is misinformation about it in their minds. What makes all this worse, is all the quack homemade remedies that are passed down from generation or made up solutions on social media that have little to no scientific approval.
Speaking of social media, it’s clearly breaking our brains. Why will, in a nation as diabetic as ours, there be food fusion videos famous? Why would someone make a Gulab Jamun pizza? Or an Oreo Pakoda? Or a Ferrero Rocher Manchurian?
No, I’m not having a stroke, those are real things that people make, eat on social and get millions of likes. Any of these are bad enough on their own, but when you start seeing the acceptance of these abominations in popular culture, it’s a matter of concern. Because this is the exact opposite direction of where we need this country to go.
What we NEED, is to talk about this silent epidemic, and teach people about healthcare, about precautions, about rehabilitation. We need to talk about the fact that someone in every third home is suffering from a life-threatening medical condition. Most people might not even know whether they have diabetes or not, they might never get themselves checked. Many might be operating with misinformation and doing things that might prove to be worse for them.
We need a nationwide awareness campaign around diabetes. We need to shout from the rooftops that we have silent killers amongst us, that’s not just ruining lives, it’s destroying families and crippling generations in this country. We did that with polio, we did that with COVID; we can do this with Diabetes too. All we need is to raise awareness about it.
A Research Piece by- Abhishake Das
Head of Content- VYGR
© Copyright 2023. All Rights Reserved Powered by Vygr Media.
