More and more women across India are getting preventive health check up done regularly. The phenomenon, though, is urban in nature, it is not limited to metro cities only, but is being seen in tier II and tier III cities also according to an exclusive report on the importance of preventive healthcare and early diagnosis in Indian women by SRL Diagnostics, one of the leading chains of multispecialty medical diagnostic laboratories in India.

The most common preventable heath disorders that afflict women in India are those related to nutrition, infections, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer, the report, says.

Nutritional deficiencies are rampant amongst women in India, with iron deficiency anemia leading the way. Women from east zone are especially afflicted with anemia.

Vitamin D deficiency and osteoporosis are a global non communicable epidemic now. Amongst women, vitamin D inadequacy is rampant, with 76 per cent of women showing inadequacy of blood levels of the vitamin. Alarmingly, 85 per cent of women from south zone showed inadequate vitamin D levels in their body.

According to the report, cardiovascular disease and diabetes are two most important non communicable diseases afflicting mankind presently and India has one of the biggest population of patients. The only way to curtail the menace according to the report is to be aware and prevent or retard the development of the diseases.

Around 31 per cent of women who had got lipid profile done under preventive health check had an abnormal lipid profile. This was more prevalent in women from the east followed by north west and south zones. East zone women had more percentage of abnormal blood glucose results as well, the report adds.

The data on the thyroid function parameters included in the preventive health check panels showed found that one in four women had abnormal results. This was most commonly observed in women from the east and least in the women from the south.

Breast and cervical cancers are the two most common cancers leading to death in Indian women. The Pap smear results done as a part of preventive health screen, showed nd an encouraging growth in the number of tests done. This, in a way, shows growing awareness amongst women across India regarding cancer. The percentage of abnormal pap smear results are no different from global trend that is around ie one per cent , the report adds.