Dundee university experts join India to help tackle diabetes

Diabetes in Europeans is very different to diabetes in south Asians. PROFESSOR COLIN PALMER

Health experts in Scotland and India are to join forces to battle diabetes after Dundee University was awarded a £7 million grant to combat the condition.

It received the funding from the National Institute for Health Research’s global health programme and will provide improved care for diabetics twinned with a clinical network of diabetes care in India.

Diabetes will be compared to improve health and reduce inequalities in both countries.

The Dundee project is one of 33 research units and groups sharing more than £120 million of funding for global health research by the Department of Health.

Professor Colin Palmer, chairman of pharmacogenomics at Dundee University, said: “Diabetes is a major problem in India with one in 12 affected, amounting to 69 million individuals currently, which is more than the entire UK population.

“With economic development and lifestyle changes, those numbers are rapidly increasing.

“Yet current knowledge on how diabetes develops, how patients respond to medications and the causes of medical complications that arise are largely derived from studies on white Europeans.

“This is despite the fact that diabetes in Europeans is very different to diabetes in south Asians.”

Prof Palmer and his colleagues in Dundee will work with a team in India to deepen knowledge of diabetes. They will also look at new ways of screening, using smartphone technology and retinal scans.

He said: “We need to understand more about diabetes in different populations.”