Type-2 diabetes: Current understanding and future perspectives

The rapid outbreak of type-2 diabetes is one of the largest public health problems around the globe. Particularly, the developing nations are becoming the epicenters of cardiometabolic disorders owing to the change in lifestyle and diet preference besides genetic predisposition. Diabetes has become a major independent risk factor for cardiovascular diseases in South Asian countries including India. The pathogenesis of type-2 diabetes primarily initiates with inadequacy of pancreatic islet β-cells to respond to chronic fuel surfeit and hence causing glycemic load, insulin resistance, and obesity. Urban Indian life is threatened with unhealthy high calorie diet and sedentary habits, and thus impairing the metabolic status of “thin-fat Indians” and rendering them more vulnerable to metabolic disorders. Furthermore, the metabolic dysfunction may be triggered off quite early in life due to poor maternal health and impairment in intrauterine programming and, particularly in rural India. The impaired fetal development affects the health status in later stage of life by promoting obesity, insulin resistance, type-2 diabetes, and cardiovascular complications. Therefore, the preventive and therapeutic approaches focus on a holistic strategy to improve maternal and child health, promote balanced diet and physical exercise in combination with pharmacological intervention of reducing/checking hyperglycemia, obesity, and cardiovascular complications. This review summarizes the epidemiology, mechanisms, and risk factors for diabetes and cardiovascular disorders with a focus on the Indian subcontinent. © 2015 IUBMB Life, 67(7):506–513, 2015