Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Diabetes higher among NRIs than Indians in India?

[Click on Post Title for Link to External Article]

Or the title should read, "Inventing new methods to waste $150,000". If you are writing a book to cover misleading research, you may have something here.

Let us examine what the study claims.

NRIs living in the United States, especially in urban environments get more diabetes than Indians living in India. Indians living in urban regions in India get more diabetes than their counterparts in rural India.

Now let us look at India. You should really travel to India to understand this part, if you are not Indian, that is. People don't go to hospitals in India that often. Diabetes is more commonly referred to as "having sugar" - no doubt from the presence of high blood sugar that remains unprocessed.

Beyond that, many do believe if you cut down sugar consumption, you will get rid of the "sugar". They will stare at you if you told them that there were two "types" of diabetes. None of this is their fault. The Government of India has absolutely no desire or realization of the fact that our people need to be educated about disease and dying.

Now let us shift bases to the US. Lets examine Indians who are in the US. A country that is quite capable of snooping into every angle of your life that Westeners stylishly like to call "privacy" has all kinds of statistics available on the Indians that live there.

Most Indians who go to the US are literate. Not a very bright thing, but helps. They have health insurance provided by their employers which allows them to run around getting tested for all things. If they own organizations and such, they have a better chance at digging through the mysteries of their human embodiment.

Given this, wouldn't it surprise you that somebody had to spend $1.5mn to arrive at the wrong answer? They could have atleast said, NRIs get tested more than Indians in India. But why would you need to spend money for that.

I do agree with all the yarn about how people eat whatever they can lay their hands on, and so on and so forth. Especially if you are in the cities, you have stopped collecting firewood, and chasing tigers away from your chicken farm..but $150,000?

I would like someone to challenge me.



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