LIFELESS: On the fast lane

Why the urban young are at risk from New Age diseases. By S S Jeevan

Even in a city swelling with computer engineers, Pradip was an exception. Well-known for his quick software solutions he earned the sobriquet of ‘terminal solution’ in Hyderabad circles. Solving the most complex problems over the phone was his favourite pastime. But that was then.

Today most of the telephone numbers in his diary are those of doctors — experts, who occupy the spaces in his life vacated by friends, colleagues, contacts and family. He manages his time according to scraps of papers — prescriptions. So if it is 6 O’ clock, it must be the red pill. This is now. Pradip, all of 25 years, is a shocking victim of adult-onset diabetes. He spends most of his evenings taking a walk to stay alive. “Sometimes, I am not even allowed to sleep as blood sugar levels could rise to dangerous levels if my body is left inactive,” he says.

It wasn’t that Pradip was unaware of his diabetic pedigree: Both his grandparents suffered from what is now known as the “silent killer”. They lost their kidneys, eyes and had their legs amputated. Just that he wasn’t prepared to confront the disease this early. A disease that would cripple him beyond imagination, and so quickly, too. By his own admission, his eyesight is fading and he’s already become an infamous figure at the local dialysis centre.

In many ways Pradip is on the cusp of a diet and lifestyle-induced epidemic.. His is not an uncommon story. Urban life is taking a rich toll on the quality of life of young people. From Bangalore to Thiruvananthapuram the story repeats itself. Not just diabetes. Diseases once the preserve of the old and the rich — obesity, blood pressure and ulcers — are ravaging the young like never before. No longer caring about class distinctions or age. The numbers are staggering. India is already the diabetic capital of the world, with an estimated 32.7 million people with the disease, most of them in their 20s and 30s. Current projections suggest that by the year 2020 India will shoulder the largest cardiovascular disease burden in the world. Heart disease, as it is, occurs 10 to 15 years earlier in India compared to the West. Over 30 percent of urban Indians suffer from blood pressure. But then ultimately statistics convey just cold numbers, and do not the pain of those affected.

Fat people
“Have you ever looked closely at family photographs,” asks V Mohan, India’s leading authority on diabetes. The older people will always look thinner while the younger ones would be trying to hide the bulge, he says. Or say, compare school photographs of today’s students with those of the last generation. Today’s children have fatty waistlines, he adds.

Mohan should know. As chairman of the M V Diabetes Speciality Centre in Chennai, he has seen a stunning change in his patient profile. “Many of my patients are in their 20s, some even in their teens.” The statistics bear him out. In the early 1970s, India’s diabetic population was just 2 percent. Now it is around 12-16 percent — a dramatic increase of 800 percent in just 30 years. “Don’t blame your genes for that,” says Mohan. For the culprit could well be the nearest fast food joint or the friendly pizza delivery boy.

Today, the death of the family meal has coincided with an explosion of fast food restaurants and smart marketing of “junk” foods to children. Cases of heart disease, hypertension and obesity have shot up as lifestyles have become more sedentary. For kids, the demise of the neighbourhood playground has now given way to computer games. And for those working in call centres and software parks, affluence has brought in the ‘car-elevator-office-computer-TV’ lifestyle. This has inevitably translated into wider waists, higher cholesterol and even higher loads of stress. Fun foods like fries, burgers and colas, for example, are now a daily staple among many youngsters, leading to high salt consumption and even high blood pressure.

This trend is akin to the pattern being observed in developed countries. A WHO study in fact shows that poor food intake and sedentary lifestyle is one of the 10 leading global causes of death and disability. Statistics from India support this claim. Data from the National Sample Survey Organisation on nutritional intake suggests that the average calorie consumption in India — which was already low by international standards — has actually declined despite amazing economic growth.

Dietary transition
“It’s a dietary transition that developing countries are passing through in an era of fast-paced urbanisation,” console nutrition specialists. Today there is a surfeit of high-fat, refined carbohydrates and low-fibre foods in the supermarkets. These foods are energy-dense, which means that people get most of the calories their bodies require from fewer foods. The diet then becomes rich in fats and sugar, but deficient in complex carbohydrate foods the body requires.

For India the situation can be much worse. Western countries too went through this dietary transition, but the process took around 100-150 years to settle. For developing counties this change is happening at a very rapid pace. Maybe even a few decades, some say. And that could be a cause for concern. So what is the way out? Consumer organisations in the West are tackling this problem in a different way. In what is called as a “nutritional movement” activists are slapping lawsuits against fast food companies for not informing people about the fat content in their products. The movement recently got a shot in the arm when a New Scientist study claimed that fast food was addictive. In New York, there is a proposal of a 1 percent tax on junk food to generate money to fight child obesity.

But for youngsters like Pradip, getting back to basics would be wiser. Says Mohan: “Re-emphasising the importance of a balanced diet, increasing levels of physical activity and quitting smoking would be crucial in containing the rise of risk factors for new age diseases.”

(New Indian Express, January 24, 2004)