Urban-rural diabetes risk in India

Diabetes and obesity strongly associated with migration patterns

A study published in April’s PLoS Medicine has found that the obesity and diabetes epidemic in India is strongly associated with rural–urban migration. The study worked with over 6,500 participants, including both migrants as well their non-migrant, rural relatives. In the case of both male and female participants, the prevalence of diabetes and obesity was greater for those who lived or had migrated to urban areas than those who lived in rural locations. Lead author Shah Ebrahim, professor of public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Disease, explained that the main triggers in the urban environment were increased calorie intake and reduced physical activity associated with urban lifestyles and disposable incomes.

In terms of preventing the continuation of this pattern, it is important to note that there was negligible difference in obesity and diabetes levels between recent migrants and older migrants who had moved to urban areas 10 years previously, suggesting an immediate adjusting period to urban lifestyles that should be targeted in prevention programmes. The study has proved very useful because, as Anoop Misra, director and head of the department of diabetes and metabolic diseases at the Fortis Hospitals in New Delhi, explained: ‘We have known earlier that migration has a profound impact on obesity and diabetes. But what is relatively new is risk imparted by migration from rural to urban areas.’

Source: SciDev.Net, 12 May 2010.

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