Currently, 14 per cent of Bengalureans are diabetic and their numbers are growing, going by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), which screened people for the disease across the city recently.
The government -run Karnataka Institute of Diabetology (KID) sees around 150 to 170 new patients with symptomatic diabetes complaints every day. Worryingly, the number of patients coming to the hospital has doubled in the past two years, according to KID director, Dr Narashima Shetty. “On any given day we have about 40 diabetologists attending to the patients but still have to turn away 20 to 30 of them, asking them to come the next day,” he says.
What is of great concern is that the disease is rising even among children and adolescents below 20. KID itself sees about 12 to 15 cases of juvenile diabetes every day. A sedentary lifestyle, lack of physical exercise, increased intake of processed food and the fast food culture is leading to increased obesity among the young, which in turn makes them vulnerable to Type 2 diabetes, Dr Shetty explains, strongly recommending that parents insist on regular physical exercise for their children and keep a check on what they eat.
Dr Seema Chowdhary, consultant gynaecologist and obstetrician, Motherhood Hospital says cases of diabetes during pregnancy too have risen drastically over the last decade. “At our hospital we have noticed that almost 15 per cent of our pregnant moms are diabetic. This leads to complications during pregnancy for both mother and child like the “big baby” syndrome, growth retardation, complications during delivery and recurrence of diabetes in later life for the mother,” she explains.
Despite the increasing number of diabetes cases being reported from the city, awareness about the disease is lower among Bengalureans than among the people of other cities like Mumbai and Delhi, says a survey conducted by the Heal Foundation. The study which covered 900 individuals (300 each from Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi) who had at least one family member living with diabetes, revealed that about 88 % of Bengalureans did not consider going for screening for diabetes, 49 % were unaware of how diabetes behaved in the long run and 90% had never seen a dietician or nutritionist to plan a meal for them or their family members despite being at high risk for it.