Apollo focusing on prevention to tackle the NCD crisis: Preetha Reddy

The variation in regional diet preferences also a leading factor in trends of non-communicable diseases

Non-communicable diseases (NCD) are going to be a major challenge for the world in times to come and Apollo Hospitals is focusing on their prevention, Preetha Reddy, executive vice-chairperson of Apollo Hospitals, told Business Standard.
 
“The contribution of NCDs in deaths has shot up. Sometimes almost 65 per cent of deaths are happening with NCDs, which is a rise from the 1990s. But you know the population is also growing. Stress has also grown,” Reddy said. According to the World Health Organization, around 71 per cent of global deaths are being contributed by NCDs. The economic burden on India due to these diseases is expected to be about $6.2 trillion before 2030.
 
“I think there's a 35 per cent increase in people looking at health screening. The good part is that the number of health screening has gone up. The level of consciousness is there. And to me that is important. We just have to look at people's behaviour changes and prevention. We have to look at early intervention,” she said.
 
She added that the variation in regional diet preferences was also a leading factor in NCD trends. According to an Apollo study, Health of Nation 2023, liver diseases saw the highest prevalence in East India (at 50 per cent). The lowest impact relatively was in the south (28 per cent). Similarly, the west saw the lowest prevalence of diabetes (15 per cent), while the south had the highest (27 per cent). Obesity trends have been similar across regions, in the range of 22-24 per cent. On the other hand, dyslipidemia (cholesterol) has the highest prevalence across all regions, with North India seeing the highest prevalence (48 per cent), followed by west (41 per cent), east (39 per cent) and then south (37 per cent).
 
Reddy indicated that preventive programmes like enhanced ProHealth by Apollo could be a step towards addressing such issues. “In our population, we saw obesity going up from 8 per cent prevalence to 12 per cent between 2019 and 2022. That's actually a huge jump in such a short period. Another one is cholesterol. We saw it going from 32 per cent in 2019 to 38 per cent overall,” said Sathya Sriram, chief executive officer, preventive health, Apollo Hospitals.
 
“We have completely redesigned and reimagined what a health screening should be. Every one of us is different, our family history and genetics are different. Our personal health is different. Our lifestyle choices are different and each of us individually makes those choices. As a result, one of the first steps is to understand the health profile. We understand the health profile of each individual through a set of questions. And then we construct a bottom-up set of recommended tests for that profile,” Sriram added.