Excelsior Correspondent
INDORE, Apr 15: Stressing for indigenous medical research, Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh today said that time has come to integrate the traditional Indian knowledge with the modern scientific inferences and also to seek a synergy of different systems of medicine including Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy for optimum and maximum benefits in the control and prevention of diseases like diabetes.
Delivering inaugural address at the 3-day World Diabetes Meet, organised by the coveted professional organisation “Diabetes India” here, Dr Jitendra Singh said that India has a huge resource pool of patients with different manifestations of diseases at different stages and at the same time there is no dearth of calibre, capacity and acumen on the part of our researchers.
“It is therefore the right time to generate as much Indian data as possible because the goal should be to develop Indian treatment regimens for Indian patients, Indian solutions for Indian problems,” he said and added that this is also important because the Indian phenotype is different from the Westerners and the genetic preponderance is also quite different. As a result, he said, the pathogenesis and progress of Type 2 diabetes mellitus and other related metabolic disorders is not the same as in the Western populations.
Citing research evidence, Dr Jitendra Singh said it has now been proven beyond doubt that Indian origin diaspora living in European countries for several generations still continue to have higher preponderance to develop Type 2 diabetes mellitus even though they were no longer living in India and the environmental conditions they are living in is different.
Referring to some of the important risk factors prevalent in Indians, Dr Jitendra Singh said that our central obesity profile is also different from others. “For example, in India, prevalence of central obesity is high and almost equal in both males and females whereas in the Western population, the individual may be apparently looking obese but has general visceral fat,” he said.
Lauding Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the high priority given to healthcare, the Minister said that it was because of the personal interest and intervention of PM Modi that within two years, India not only managed the Covid pandemic successfully better than much smaller countries, but also succeeded in coming out with a DNA vaccine and providing it to the other countries as well.
Dr Jitendra Singh said that prevention of diabetes is not only our duty towards healthcare but also our duty towards nation building. As our 70 percent population is below the age of 40, we cannot afford to let energy of our youth go waste in incapacitating complications occurring as a result of Type 2 diabetes and other related disorders, he said.
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