Debdutta Guha Roy, a first-year student of St Xavier?s College, was recently diagnosed with diabetes. The disease runs in the family, but the shattered young man hadn?t expected the slow, silent scourge to strike so early.
While India is expected to soon overtake China with the maximum number of diabetics in the world, the situation is already grave in Calcutta, with juvenile diabetes being detected at a menacing rate.
A recent survey by the endocrinology department of SSKM Hospital revealed that diabetic detection ? both Type I (insulin dependent) and Type II ? has increased alarmingly in the past five years in the zero-20 age group.
The registered figure has gone up from 54 child diabetics in 1999 to 393 by end-2003.
?While awareness is growing, juvenile diabetes ? caused by bad food habits and obesity among children ? has been largely neglected,? says Sudip Chatterjee, a city-based endocrinologist.
Diabetic Association of India (DAI) estimates put the number of diabetics in Calcutta at 600,000 and the figure in the zero-20 age group between 55,000 and 60,000.
Nearly 40 per cent are insulin-dependent.
DAI is in talks with the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education about ways to increase physical activity in schools.
?Now, there is hardly any physical activity to check child obesity. We are meeting the Board to raise awareness about the need for sports in schools,? said Subhankar Choudhury, vice-president, DAI, and head of endocrinology at SSKM Hospital.
The Park Medical Research Society and DAI have planned a two-day meeting among diabetologists, starting December 11.
?We are holding an awareness camp on the importance of lifestyle modification and the ill-effects of fast food,? added Chatterjee. ?Not many are aware that diabetes increases the risk of heart attacks.?
Surveys across major Calcutta hospitals have shown that in the past five years, obesity is also on the rise. Park Clinic, for example, reports 1,364 obese patients in the zero-20 age group, compared with 2,049 in the 20-80 age group.
SSKM Hospital is treating 13,554 diabetics now in the zero-60 age group, compared with just 8,641 five years ago.
?Cholesterol and blood sugar control, no smoking, and check-ups after the age of 40 are crucial,? said diabetologist Satinath Mukherjee.
