Why is diabetes so common in Indians? A three-decade study tracking more than 700 Pune families has found a tendency towards high glucose in early childhood in many individuals.

A three-decade study tracking more than 700 Pune families, now going into the third generation, has sought to understand why diabetes is so common in Indians, and found a tendency towards high glucose in early childhood in many individuals. The authors have called for a diabetes prevention strategy from early life. This comes close on the heels of a recent recommendation by experts to lower the screening age for diabetes from 30 to 25 years.

•How were these families tracked?

At the Diabetes Unit of KEM Hospital, Pune, scientists have been carrying out research for 35 years to understand why diabetes is so common in Indians. In 1993, they embarked on the Pune Maternal Nutrition Study (PMNS) across six villages near Pune, and have followed more than 700 families since. They have tracked women from before they became pregnant and during their pregnancy, and their children through childhood, puberty and now as adults.
The study, ‘Poor In Utero Growth, Reduced b-Cell Compensation and High Fasting Glucose from Childhood are Harbingers of Glucose Intolerance in Young Indians’, by Dr C S Yajnik, Director of the diabetes unit at KEM hospital, and co-authors, has been published in Diabetes Care, a journal of the American Diabetes Association.

At the Diabetes Unit of KEM Hospital, Pune, scientists have been carrying out research for 35 years to understand why diabetes is so common in Indians. In 1993, they embarked on the Pune Maternal Nutrition Study (PMNS) across six villages near Pune, and have followed more than 700 families since. They have tracked women from before they became pregnant and during their pregnancy, and their children through childhood, puberty and now as adults.


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