Indians
adding to world obesity problem: Report
A
recent report has debunked the idea that obesity is a problem generally
associated with relatively richer Western countries. Middle-income countries
like India also add to this severe problem and are now at the heart of a
"fat explosion".
The
Overseas Development Institute (ODI), found that Indians form a massive chunk
of the one in three adults now overweight or obese, adding up to 1.46 billion
across the world.
This
report titled "Future Diets",selected five middle-income countries -
India, China, Egypt, Peru and Thailand to exemplify the dietary trends in the
developing world over the past 50 years.
The
analysis revealed that between 1980 and 2008, those affected in the developing
world by obesity had tripled, from 250 million to 904 million.
The
percentage of obese and overweight in India rose from about 9 per cent of the
population in 1980 to 11 per cent in 2008.
"India's
consumption of animal products is approaching that of China's in terms of its
contribution to the average plate, but here the increase is almost entirely in
milk consumption, with only limited increases for meat," the report said.
According
to the ODI analysis: "Policies to improve diets have been rather timid,
with some significant exceptions such as the public distribution system of
India or rationing in wartime UK.
It
stressed that decisive government intervention will become an inevitability in
future to encourage people to eat healthier.
Obesity
is major health hazard and is linked to several serious medical conditions like
cancers, diabetes, heart diseases and strokes.
06.01.2014
Dysfunction
in single gene could lead to diabetes
Researchers including
an Indian-origin researcher have found that dysfunction in a single gene causes
fasting hyperglycemia, which is one of the major symptoms of type 2 diabetes.
Lead author Bellur S. Prabhakar, professor and head of
microbiology and immunology at UIC, said that if a gene called MADD is not
functioning properly, insulin is not released into the bloodstream to regulate
blood sugar levels.
Small genetic variations found among thousands of human
subjects revealed that a mutation in MADD was strongly associated with type 2
diabetes in Europeans and Han Chinese.
To study the role of MADD in diabetes, Prabhakar and his
team developed a mouse model in which the MADD gene was deleted from the
insulin-producing beta cells. All such mice had elevated blood glucose levels,
which the researchers found was due to insufficient release of insulin.
The finding shows that type 2 diabetes can be directly
caused by the loss of a properly functioning MADD gene alone, Prabhakar said.
"Without the gene, insulin can't leave the beta cells, and blood glucose
levels are chronically high."
The findings have been reported online in the journal
Diabetes.
06.01.2014
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