The Hindu Business Line : Of sugarless sweets and diabetes diets

FROM sugarless sweets this Diwali, courtesy the traditional mithai maker, to healthcare institutions focusing on "diabetes diets" — realisation is dawning.

The prevalence of diabetes in India is too large to ignore and, naturally, efforts to control it are spilling into features of daily life, like your average Diwali sweet.

The World Health Organisation's (WHO) theme for World Diabetes Day (November 14) is "Fight Obesity - Prevent Diabetes" and different institutions in the country are trying to reach out to people with educative messages on diabetes.

India features prominently on the diabetes map, accounting for an estimated 35 million of the total about 150 million people affected by diabetes globally.

The global number is tipped to double to 300 million by 2025, says WHO.

"Governments have even toyed with the concept of a fat-tax on fast-food companies, for instance, to get a grip on the increasing incidence of diabetes in the country," says a representative with a healthcare institution, indicating the seriousness of the situation.

In this context, Mumbai's Hiranandani Hospital is holding a session on World Diabetes Day where diabetologists, dieticians and other specialists would interact with the public.

Also on offer are free blood-sugar camps and medical examinations to calculate the body mass index - an indicator that tells people whether it was time they knocked off some weight.

The day would also be dedicated to demonstrations on how to make low calorie dishes, cooked items, sugarless sweets, diet food and diet drinks.

Meanwhile, at the indulgent end of the spectrum, Sweetex (an artificial sweetner brand from Boots Piramal) tied-up with a local mithai maker and retailer, Punjabi Ghasitaram Halwai, to introduce a special range of sweets for diabetics, this festive season.

"These sweets would be made using Sweetex as the artificial sweetener, thus sweetening the mithai, without increasing blood glucose levels," a note from the company said.

And the range from this tie-up boasts of a variety of sweets that include delicacies such as malai peda, rasmalai, basundi and anjeera barfi, the note said.

Sweet connoisseurs say that even the famed Bengali rasagulla are available in diabetes-friendly versions.

But with diabetes being linked back to both genetic and lifestyle factors, such as obesity, lack of exercise and erratic eating habits, medical practitioners call for more pro-active efforts to educate the population.

WHO data, quoting studies in India, say that in a low-income Indian family where an adult has diabetes, as much as 25 per cent of family income may be devoted to diabetes care.

"Add to the expense on medicines and insulin are intangible factors like loss of production and anguish faced by the individual and family," says a doctor, concerned over the prevalence of the illness and the urgent need to act.