Reconsidering the history of type 2 diabetes in India: Emerging or re-emerging disease.
Article
in English
| IMSEAR
| ID: sea-139021
ABSTRACT
The emergence of type 2 diabetes in India, coinciding with the country’s rapid economic development in the past several decades, is often characterized as a modern epidemic resulting directly from westernization. We draw on India’s agricultural, linguistic, medical, economic, religious and gastronomic history to examine the possibility that type 2 diabetes mellitus may have existed in ancient India, having subsequently declined in the two centuries leading up to the present. The implications of such a possibility vis-à-vis the role of westernization in the global diabetes aetiology are discussed. Additionally, an argument is made for careful application of the terms ‘westernization’ and ‘globalization’ in discussions of chronic disease aetiology, where their often totalizing discourses may obscure the sociocultural particularities of manifestations of these conditions in various global arenas.
Full text:
Available
Index:
IMSEAR (South-East Asia)
Main subject:
Body Composition
/
Humans
/
Nutritional Status
/
Risk Factors
/
History, Ancient
/
History, Medieval
/
History, 20th Century
/
History, 21st Century
/
Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2
/
India
Type of study:
Etiology study
/
Risk factors
Country/Region as subject:
Asia
Language:
English
Year:
2008
Type:
Article
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