VELLORE: Exposure to environmental pollutants and chemicals is a risk factor for the early onset of diabetes impacting life expectancy, said Dr Nihal Thomas of CMC’s endocrinology and diabetes department.

The professor warned that complications related to diabetes are expected to push the global burden of diabetes to more than 521 million people. According to him, south Asia will be accounting for 68% of those affected by diabetes by 2050.

India would share a huge burden out of the increasing impact of diabetes as 1.45 billion people out of south Asia’s 1.90 billion population live in India, Dr Thomas said while interacting with the media, whose article on global geographical inequity in diabetes was recently published by renowned medical journal Lancet. Diabetes affected more young people in south Asia even if their body mass index (BMI) was not above normal, he added. Normal weight does not preclude south Asians from developing the syndrome compared to their European counterparts, said Dr Thomas. Diabetes which was earlier common in urban affluent communities is now emerging as an threatening issue in rural areas too, he said.

Referring to chronic malnutrition which played a major role in diabetes, he said between 1830 and 1980 an average Indian’s height remained static while that of Europeans increased by 15 centimetres. Diabetes in children and adolescents was also increasing as also the complication rates, he said. Dr Thomas also said that obesity has resulted in Indian children gaining 5 centimetres height compared to their parents.