Fieldwork in India
India has the highest rate of diabetes in the world with Indian migrants known to be particularly at risk of developing the disease. Alarmingly, rates of diabetes among Indians in rural areas are no different from those of Indians in urban environments. This is also true of Indian migrants to the UK. However, the rates remain markedly higher than in the indigenous UK population.
A research partnership between India and the UK is investigating why people from the Indian subcontinent appear to have a higher risk of developing diabetes and associated complications such as heart disease.
A multi-disciplinary team of scientists, physicians and nurses from the University of Birmingham in the UK - are studying more than 300 schoolchildren in India to see if risk factors can be detected early in life.
They hope that by measuring the weight, height, waist and hip girths plus the blood pressure of the children aged between five and 11 years, they will be able to see progressive trends in, for example, childhood obesity which is strongly linked with the development of Diabetes.
‘The cumulative impact of years of rapid urbanisation and dietary transition in India is a disturbing and discernable challenge to the healthcare burden that faces this country,’ warns Rahul Potluri, aged 23, a final-year Birmingham medical student, who is undertaking the research in India with principal investigator Dr Jeetesh Patel, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University.
‘In Western countries, diabetes is attributable to weight gain – a biological response to excessive energy intake,’ explains Rahul, whose roots are from Hyderabad, AP.
World Health Organisation estimates suggest that worldwide up to 20 million children aged five and under could be at risk of obesity-related disease, he says. ‘Can the healthcare economics of India bear a burden that is a major priority in Western countries?’
Current trends are not helping, it seems. The team points out that 200ml glass soft-drinks bottles are increasingly being replaced by 600ml plastic bottles. ‘This not only has a huge obesity-related impact, it prevents the recycling of glass bottles,’ says Rahul.
‘Previously, in our study of an Indian community living in Britain and their contemporaries in rural villages in India, we reported remarkable increases in body weight with migration. However, differences in waist size were less marked. Does this preservation of fat around the abdomen represent a basis for developing diabetes and an underlying susceptibility to coronary heart disease in these ethnic groups?’ – Dr Jeetesh Patel
The novel work has already attracted widespread acclaim. Rahul Potluri has been awarded the prestigious Cochrane Prize 2007 from the Faculty of Public Health in the UK where he also presented the work to top British Scientists and Doctors. He has also been conferred numerous other prizes for the work including an award for ₤1000 from the British Medical Association which is the union for doctors in the UK. The work is also being filmed for TV documentary in the UK.
“We need further research like ours in India with a focus on early detection in children, before the Diabetes problem hurls out of control” says Rahul
The research team hope the results of this innovative project will aid understanding of weight gain in Indian children and its relationship to diabetes which will lead to improved clinical practice especially in fast-growing India where there has been an exponential growth in consumption of fast-food due to westernisation.
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