Abstract: Chronic diseases refer to a collection of diseases which take decades to fully establish and are largely untreatable. The most common ones include diabetes, stroke, cancer, hypertension and heart/cardiovascular diseases. They are responsible for more than half of total deaths each year worldwide, and the incidence has grown tremendously over the last fifty years, overtaking infectious diseases as the major disease burden of most countries. In India, this transition occurred late, but at present chronic diseases represents a significant proportion of total loss and disability. India’s chronic disease situation is characterized by two distinct qualities; first, the younger populations are largely implicated in most major chronic diseases and second, the prevalence is more common in urban areas. In exploring the reasons behind the dramatic transformation of a population’s overall health, lifestyle factors provide the best explanation. Three major lifestyle aspects of diet, physical activity and substance use are most often recognized as easily modifiable in prevention of chronic diseases and the changes in these three lifestyle domains over the last fifty years, particularly in urban areas, give a clear indication of why chronic diseases are rising so dramatically. The foremost method of curbing the impending epidemic of chronic diseases remains addressing particular long term changes in diet, physical activity and substance use for the whole population.
Keywords: Chronic diseases, lifestyle, India, diet, physical activity, substance use.
Title: Living with chronic diseases in India
Author: Prakat Karki
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
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