Context: Recently the medical journal Lancet launched its study on Diabetes and Endocrinology that reveals that more than a tenth of the people in the country have diabetes, 35 per cent have hypertension and 28 per cent have high cholesterol levels.
What is a lifestyle disorder?
- Lifestyle diseases can be defined as diseases linked to one’s lifestyle. These diseases are non-communicable diseases.
Causes of Lifestyle Disorder
- They are caused by lack of physical activity, unhealthy eating, alcohol, substance use disorders and smoking tobacco, which can lead to heart disease, stroke, obesity, type II diabetes and lung cancer.
- These studies have pointed out that lifestyle-related disease is aggravated by poor awareness, especially in rural areas.
Who is more affected by Lifestyle disorders?
- Several studies have shown that close to 20 per cent of diabetics in the country are below the age of 45 and nearly 45 per cent of the people with the disease are not senior citizens.
- The burden of these disorders is higher in urban areas. But people in rural centres are increasingly becoming vulnerable to metabolic diseases, especially diabetes.
- There is, for instance, almost no rural-urban divide when it comes to pre-diabetes — more than 60 per cent of pre-diabetic people in India end up having the disease.
- The study’s warning that the country’s already serious diabetes burden could take a turn for the worst in the next five years should be taken seriously by the country’s healthcare sector.
Consequences of lifestyle disorder
- In 2005, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 61 per cent of all deaths -35 million and 49 per cent of the global burden of disease were attributable to chronic diseases.
- By 2030, the proportion of total global deaths due to chronic diseases is expected to increase to 70 per cent and the global burden of disease to 56 per cent.
- The Havard School of public health estimated that NCDs are responsible for a loss of 6.2 trillion US dollars between the period 2012-30.
