India’s burden of Parkinson’s disease may see a sharp increase by 2030, according to Karnataka health and medical education minister Dr K. Sudhakar.
Parkinson’s disease is a progressive, incurable though treatable neurodegenerative disorder which affects approximately ten million people globally. In India, an estimated 0.58 million people are living with Parkinson’s disease as of 2016.
By 2030, Sudhakar said India can anticipate a 200 to 300 percent increase in cases with one percent of the total population affected by the disorder. This provides impetus for interventions to mitigate the increase in cases, he said. The National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) in Karnataka state capital Bengaluru is working on neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s and will collaborate with the Parkinson’s Research Alliance of India (PRAI) to further such work concerning the condition.
The projected substantial increase in Parkinson’s disease cases in the years to come are aligned with a trend for many neurological disorders. The rate of such conditions doubled in the 29-year period between 1990 and 2019 according to recent research published in The Lancet, which covered conditions such as Parkinson’s, stroke, headache disorders, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, brain and central nervous system cancer, multiple sclerosis, motor neuron diseases, and other neurological disorders), as well as communicable neurological disorders (encephalitis, meningitis, and tetanus) and injury-related neurological disorders (traumatic brain injuries and spinal cord injuries).
“The study notes that known risk factors for neurological disorders are issues such as high blood pressure, air pollution, dietary risks, high fasting plasma glucose, and high body-mass index,” Health Issues India summarised. “These risk factors are a common issue in many NCDs, such as heart disease and cancer. They have also shown a marked increase in tandem with both a rise in NCD cases as well as, as the study demonstrates, neurological disorders.” India’s ageing population is also a factor in the rise of neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s.