Atlanta’s Emory University and Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) have formed a Global Centre of Excellence for Cardiometabolic Diseases with funding of US$ 4 million from the National Heart, Lung, And Blood Institute of the National Institutes Of Health to carry out an advanced research on the cause and prevention of diabetes and Cardiovascular Diseases(CAD).

The key objective of the research is  to assess the burden and risk factors for CAD and diabetes in India and Pakistan.

For the India project, Emory and PHFI have forged alliances with Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRI), the All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), New Delhi and the Aga Khan University, Karachi.

Partners from India are Dr Prabakaran from PHFI, Dr Mohan from MDRF and Dr Nikhil Tandon from AIIMS.

The project which spans for a period of five years has three components. Firstly, it  will focus on carrying our Cohort studies on 12,000 recruits Delhi, Chennai and Karachi to understand the causes and risk factors of diabetes and CAD.

Secondly it will look at 1,200 patients from eight centres to test a strategy for tight  control of diabetes, hypertension and lipids.

Thirdly, it work towards a health policy focusing on control of diabetes and CAD.

The five year project is in the second year, and patient recruitments are on. Going by the growing incidence of the diabetes in India, estimated at 50 million in 2010 and to touch 85 million by 2015,  there is a need to study the reason for the condition and ensure early detection that could prevent its onset, Dr K M Venkat Narayan, Hubert Professor, Global Health & Epidemiology, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University and  principal investigator of the NIH supported study told Pharmabiz.

Dr Narayan who is now in Bangalore for the study said that  NIH allocated a total funding of US$ 35 million and has networked with of nine centres globally. These include centres from India: PHFI and St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore,  Bangladesh, China, South Africa, Argentina, Peru, Kenya and Guatemala.

“The need of the hour is to comprehend the epidemiology and address prevention of diabetes and CAD. India is recording a rise in diabetes in urban and rural areas. There is a serious lack of health financing and many of the symptoms are ignored primarily because of the growing healthcare costs. This is where the government of India  needs to encourage and fund research to understand the disease, improve the treatment modalities and reduce the risk factors like diabetic nephropathy, retinopathy and neuropathy,” added Dr Narayan.

This is where NIH funded research associating Emory University, a top 20 global research centre and PHFI, New Delhi will help to view  the factors of unhealthy eating, growing obesity and lack of physical exercises on the one hand and monitor the maternal & foetal conditions among pregnant women along with the genes related causes on the other.

“We have been able to find out that the Indian population may lack functioning of pancreatic beta cells which creates insulin. In the next three to five years, we need to take a closer look at the basic reasons of high incidence diabetes CAD, scout for  early treatment modalities which would hopefully be possible from India,” said Dr Narayan.