Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology Dr Jitendra Singh said that in times to come, India is all set to lead the diabetes research in the world.

Delivering inaugural address at the 3-day World Diabetes Meet organised by the professional organisation "Diabetes India" recently in Indore, Dr Jitendra Singh, who is also a renowned diabetologist, said that India has a huge resource pool of patients with different manifestations of diseases at different stages and at the same time there is no dearth of calibre, capacity and acumen on the part of our researchers.

It is therefore the right time to generate as much Indian data as possible because the goal should be to develop Indian treatment regimens for Indian patients, Indian solutions for Indian problems. He said this is also important because the Indian phenotype is different from the westerners and the genetic preponderance is also quite different. As a result, the pathogenesis and progress of Type 2 diabetes mellitus and other related metabolic disorders is not the same as in the western populations, he added.

Citing research evidence, Dr Jitendra Singh said that it has now been proven beyond doubt that Indian origin diaspora living in European countries for several generations still continue to have higher preponderance to develop Type 2 diabetes mellitus even though they were no longer living in India and the environmental conditions they are living in is different.

He also said that time has come to integrate the traditional Indian knowledge with the modern scientific inferences and also to seek a synergy of different systems of medicine including Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy for optimum and maximum benefits in the control and prevention of diabetes.