From yoga to medicine access: India steps up fight against growing non-communicable disease crisis

From the emerging evidence on the role of yoga in the management of cardiovascular diseases to achieve targets related to ABC in the care of diabetes, promotion of healthier diets by reducing high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt, and ultra-processed foods to improving access to antihypertensive medications, the strategies are being implemented in order to tackle the escalating NCD crisis in India.

The efforts required to bring down NCDs were discussed at the ongoing World Health Summit 2025 in Berlin by a panel of experts moderated by Dr Sanghamitra Pati, Additional Director General, ICMR, and Dr Tanvir Kaur, Head, International Health Division.

Dr V Mohan, Chairman, Madras Diabetes Research Foundation, spoke on preventing diabetes complications, achieving ABC targets, and controlling HbA1c, that is, blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol.

Referring to the ICMR-INDIAB study, India's largest epidemiological survey on diabetes, Dr Mohan also spoke about the growing prevalence of diabetes among young adults and how more than 101 million Indians are presently living with diabetes and another 136 million being pre-diabetic.

"Along with clinical management, lifestyle interventions are key and a healthy diet along with increased physical activity can prevent up to at least 50 per cent of new Type 2 diabetes cases," added Dr Mohan.

Dr Bharati Kulkarni, Director, ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition, said that their surveys had pointed towards a lack of diversity in Indian diets, veering towards processed foods, high in fat, salt and sugar, more so in urban areas. Dr Kulkarni further gave a snapshot on how initiatives such as Eat Right India and policies aimed at reversing this trend through public education, food labelling and school-based interventions.

During the panel discussion, Dr. Manoj Murhekar, Director, ICMR-National Institute of Epidemiology, Chennai and Head, Epidemiology Division of ICMR shared how the India Hypertension Control Initiative has resulted in substantial outcomes towards addressing high blood pressure.

Among the IHCI tools put into work for tracking and monitoring are the SIMPLE App. It reached over 5 million people in 2024 across 157 districts. This came with global recognition.

Dr Gautam Sharma, Professor, Cardiology and Head, Centre for Integrative Medicine and Research, All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, further elaborated that the trend is fast catching on as yoga is slowly being seen not only as an exercise but also as therapy.

According to Dr. Sharma, the main principles underlying the beneficial effects of yoga in cardiovascular disorders are "a modulation of the autonomic nervous system, reduction of stress and psychological burden, and cardiac rehabilitation."