For a State which takes immense pride in consistently coming at the top in the health index rankings of NITI Aayog every year, the findings of the ICMR-INDIAB study, which puts Kerala right on top with the worst overall indicators for long-term morbidity and mortality due to non-communicable diseases, has undoubtedly come a cropper.
A current diabetes prevalence of nearly 24%, pre-diabetes at 18.1% and hypertension prevalence at a whopping 44%, is certainly not the picture of a healthy State. With more than half the State’s population having high cholesterol levels and abdominal obesity, the incidence of cardiovascular diseases and chronic kidney diseases could skyrocket in the near future and have significant impact on the State’s health expenditure as well as private spending on catastrophic illnesses.
Kerala has known since the mid or late 90s that NCDs are going to be its biggest health challenge, thanks to the population-based studies led by public health experts like the late Dr. C. R. Soman, who warned about the imminent catastrophe of heart attacks and other chronic diseases in the population because of the unhealthy, carbohydrate -heavy diet and sedentary lifestyle of Keralites.
