India sees significant increase in inflammatory bowel disease, says Lancet study

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has increased to more than 5 per cent compared to 0.1 per cent in 2006, new Telangana-based research published in The Lancet Regional Health-Southeast Asia journal said. IBD accounted for more than 5 per cent of patients presenting lower gastrointestinal symptoms such as abdominal chronic pain, bowel habit changes and chronic diarrhoea, the study conducted by the IBD Center of the Asian Institute of Gastroenterology (AIG), Hyderabad, found.

The figure of 5 per cent remained unchanged between urban and rural populations, the researchers said, after evaluating nearly 31,000 patients displaying lower gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms from March, 2020 to May, 2022. A previous rural survey conducted by the same institute in 2006 estimated IBD prevalence at 0.1 per cent, the study said.

Urbanisation could be a likely cause behind the trend, say the researchers, citing Asian countries like Japan and Korea which have reported a rising prevalence, and both of which experienced rapid industrialisation after World War II. The last two decades have seen an increasing incidence and prevalence of IBD in the Asia-Pacific region and that India appeared to be in an accelerated industrialisation phase, with a rapidly increasing IBD incidence, they said in the study.

If the trend continued, then the number of affected could likely exceed those in the West in the next decade, and this could have «significant implications for healthcare policy and expenditure in the region,» they wrote in the study. For the study, patients attending urban out-patient clinics or specially conducted mobile rural health camps (in the villages of Ranga Reddy, Sangareddy and Vikarabad districts of Telangana) were assessed.