With almost 77 million people living with diabetes, India is often referred to as the diabetes capital of the world, and a report says that males are more at risk of diabetes while females are more prone to being pre-diabetic.

Prediabetes is a serious health condition where blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not high enough yet to be diagnosed as Type-2 diabetes. The new report by SRL Diagnostics analysed a total of 21, 88,761 samples of HbA1c -- a test to gauge glucose levels -- from January 2017 till September 2021 in India. The report found an annual percentage increase in the number of samples analysed for HbA1c across the country at an average rate of 37 per cent each year between 2017 and 2019. The percentage, however, dropped by 23 per cent in 2020, possibly due to the COVID pandemic.

Of the total samples tested, 42 per cent tested positive for diabetes, 35 per cent were found to be pre-diabetic, while 23 per cent had normal HbA1c levels. The percentage of males (46 per cent) testing positive for diabetes was found more than females (37 per cent). On the other hand, the number of females (36 per cent) testing positive for pre-diabetes was slightly more than males (34 per cent).

Age groups 61 to 85 years had the most cases of diabetes (58 per cent) followed by age group 46 to 60 years (51 per cent) in the country. Of the states, Kolkata (47 per cent) was found to have the highest level of diabetics, followed by Bengaluru (45 per cent), Delhi (42 per cent), Mumbai and Chennai (37 per cent).

Pre-diabetics were most common in Mumbai (39 per cent), followed by Delhi (37 per cent), Kolkata (36 per cent), Bangalore (35 per cent) and Chennai (34 per cent). "One in six people with diabetes in the world is from India. As of 2019, India had the second-highest number of diabetes patients aged between 20 and 79 years with close to 77 million living with diabetes," SRL Diagnostics Technical Director, Dr Anurag Bansal, said in a statement. "Early diagnosis, extensive awareness and lifestyle interventions are required to keep our future generations healthier," he suggested.