On the run-up to World Diabetes Day on November 14, experts in the country have appealed to Govt. of India, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and ICMR to decrease screening age of diabetes to 25 years from the current cut off of 30 years.
In a research paper published on November 3, 2021 in Diabetes India, the experts We valid arguments and some data to back up our appeal.
“During last decade, there has been surge of younger patients with diabetes (between 15-30 years), and these may not have been diagnosed for sometime. In this paper we appeal to Ministry of Health to decrease cut-off for screening for diabetes from 30 y to 25 years in order to diagnose these young patients early. " Dr ANOOP Misra, lead author and head of Fortis-C-DOC Centre of Excellence for Diabetes, said.
Excerpts from the article
Current guidelines state that screening for diabetes should be done at 30 years of age in India.
Investigators from multiple sites in India were involved in providing data regarding patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) aged 30 years or less. Other relevant studies were also reviewed.
Result showed Overview of published and unpublished data show increasing prevalence of T2D in individuals 30 years and less. About 3/4th of them had overweight/obesity.
Screening for diabetes in India should start at 25 years in non-pregnant adults instead of 30 years as currently stipulated.
One of the earliest descriptions of youth-onset type 2 diabetes in people of South Asian origin was found in a research paper by Ehtisham et al. from the UK in the year 2000. These authors stated, “Eight girls were identified with T2D, aged 9e16 years and who were of Pakistani, Indian or Arabic origin. They were all overweight and had a family history of diabetes in at least two generations”.
Many papers from India which mentioned of other types of diabetes in young; malnutrition-modulated diabetes, fibro-calculous diabetes, and maturity onset diabetes of young.
In August 2021 even US preventive service task force recommendation were on the same lines. Join the conversation.
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