Nine out of 10 physicians feel insulin therapy is most effective for diabetes treatment: Survey

Endocrine Society of India and Novo Nordisk conduct eight-city survey to understand the burden of diabetes in India and the optimum ways to treat and prevent it

To mark World Health Day this year, Endocrine Society of India (ESI) in association with Novo Nordisk India commissioned an eight-city survey among physicians by IMRB.

The objective of the survey was to understand the burden of diabetes in India and the optimum ways to treat and prevent. Commenting on the survey, Melvin D’souza, VP & GM, Novo Nordisk India said, “This year, the theme for World Health Day is ‘Beat Diabetes’. In India, there is an immediate need for a concerted effort from all stakeholders involved to bring more awareness around diabetes and its staggering socio-economic burden. Diabetes should not be considered a disease rather a lifestyle related disorder that can be managed with simple modifications to one’s lifestyle and food habits. With early detection and on-time treatment, people with diabetes can live a healthy life.”

According to International Diabetes Federation (IDF), one in 11 adults has diabetes. The ESI-Novo Nordisk India World Health Day survey too reveals similar findings. Around 93 per cent of participating physicians agreed that incidence level of diabetes has grown manifold in the last two-three years. The situation is more severe in tier-1 cities with physicians seeing a 200 per cent increase in incidence levels.

The survey also affirmed that even though all newly diagnosed people with diabetes were advised lifestyle modifications, but nearly seven out of 10 people with diabetes found it challenging to implement.

While oral medication continue to be prescribed by the physician community for type 2 diabetes, around 50 per cent physicians switched their patients to insulin therapy within three years, keeping in mind the long-term benefits of insulin.

The survey also indicated that over 40 per cent participating doctors believed that insulin therapy can address diabetes related health complications, the most notable being prevention of kidney ailments.

The survey further adds that currently only 1/3 people (one in three people with diabetes) with diabetes readily accept insulin when prescribed, with the biggest concern being fear and pain associated with taking injections. Although the participating physicians believed that these concern areas can be addressed by using modern insulin devices.

Approximately 75 per cent participants feel that modern self-administration devices help diabetes management to a great extent and nearly 4/5 agree that such devices have significant benefits over conventional injection methods; averting the risk of hypoglycaemia being the biggest advantage.