Mumbai: Obesity was found to be the leading threat to global public health in terms of avoidable years of healthy life lost, as per The Lancet Commission on 21st Century Global Threats to Health.
According to the commission, obesity could account for 23.1 billion cumulative amenable disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) between 2025 and 2100.
The figure is the highest of the 17 catastrophic threats to human health and survival assessed by the Lancet Commission, which include the malicious use of artificial intelligence (AI) and nuclear conflict.
The study draws on new risk analysis from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation covering 204 countries and territories.
The Commission describes the obesity burden as growing and forecast to compound over time. Obesity’s avoidable burden was found to be several times higher than that of climate change (1.89 billion DALYs), pandemics (2.39 billion DALYs) and antimicrobial resistance (3.44 billion DALYs).
Seeking comment on the Lancet Commission’s findings, Mumbai-based diabetologist Dr Rajiv Kovil told ETHealthworld that the findings should be a particular concern for India, where obesity often manifests differently and BMI alone may fail to capture the associated health risk
“India faces a particularly dangerous form of obesity: more visceral fat, less muscle and metabolic disease at lower BMIs. Many Indians may look thin but are metabolically obese. BMI alone cannot capture this risk. With over 100 million Indians living with diabetes, obesity is driving an epidemic of diabetes, fatty liver and cardiovascular disease. India’s biggest threat is not just expanding waistlines, but deteriorating metabolic health, often at younger ages.”
The Commission recommended governments to invest in long-term innovations such as oral obesity medicines, through public-private partnerships to tackle the growing threat of obesity.
Dr Kovil said that while GLP-1 drugs have revolutionised obesity treatment, they alone cannot solve India’s metabolic crisis.
He added, “Alongside GLP-1 therapy, adequate protein, resistance exercise and muscle preservation are essential. Medicines can treat the biology of obesity, but intelligent policies must prevent it.”
Speaking on the finding, Dr Anoop Misra, Chairman at Fortis CDOC Hospital for Diabetes and Allied Sciences told ETHealthworld that India must act now to to strengthen prevention.
He said, “India urgently needs stronger preventive policies, early screening, environmental action and equitable healthcare. Failure to act now will impose an enormous health and economic burden on future generations.”
