| People in developing countries are more susceptible to diabetes than those in developed countries, feel experts.
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| The reason being, increasing popularity of fast-food and aerated drinks, lack of education and myths like obesity is the sign of good health among other factors.
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| The transition from a “developing” to a “developed” nation involved changes in the food-habits of urban population, mainly due to the availability of cheap fast foods and sedentary lifestyle, Philip Home, vice president, International Diabetes told Business Standard on the sidelines of recently-concluded three day seminar on diabetes by Research Society for the Study of Diabetes in India (RSSDI). He agreed that multinational companies tended to leverage from lack of awareness about nutritional content of fast foods and aerated drinks among people to increase sales.
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| Christopher D Saudek, director, John Hopkins Diabetes Center, said the transition from being “under-nourished” to “nourished” in developing nations was associated with diabetes.
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| “Sudden transition from being undernourished to nourished leads to diabetes. The problem is worse when the transition is from being prosperous to more prosperous, as happened in Europe,” he said. He also said many schools in the UK had banned the sale of aerated drinks in campuses. “These days many companies are understanding their social responsibility though,” he added. In order to rectify the situation, there was a need for increased consumer-awareness through school education and other methods, so that people were aware of their rights, Home said. Further, some states in the US have banned the sale of margarine, often perceived as a healthy substitute to butter, as it contained trans-fat, according to Home . He said dairy products often contain large amount of trans-fats, but are largely consumed in countries like India.
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| “It is much easier to say that than doing it. Poor quality dairy products often have large quantity of trans-fat. But we have to be thoughtful about the issue,” said Home. India could become be a hub for diabetes research but there was a need of strengthening patent laws to make that happen, said Home.
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| “India has got a large number of diabetes patients and China is behind India as far as research in the field is concerned. Though there are difficulties in research because if a country wants to promote research it has to protect it. But then there are questions of its availability to large masses. The solution is price-negotiation with the researchers, as done in many other countries,” he said. Suadek agreed with Home and said price-negotiation was the only solution for promoting research in medicine while providing its benefits to everyone. During the last 20 years the total number of people with diabetes worldwide has risen from 30 million to 230 million, according to the International Diabetes Federation.
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| Within the next 20 years, this number is expected to grow to 380 million. More than 42 million people in India are suffering from diabetes. One in every three person in the country suffers from diabetes in the country.
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| In spite of intensive research and deliberations by doctors on diabetes, large population of the country remain deprived of the remedies for the disease.
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| According to a study by the World Diabetes Foundation, in developing countries, less than half of people with diabetes are diagnosed. Without timely diagnoses and adequate treatment, complications and morbidity from diabetes rise exponentially. Mechanisms for financing health care are non-existent in most developing countries and health costs therefore typically represent out-of-pocket expenditure, the study says.
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| According to WHO ( World Health Organization ), 80 per cent of people in developing countries pay directly for some or all of their medicine. For a low-income Indian family with an adult with diabetes, as much as 25% of family income may be devoted to diabetes care. |
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