Over the last 30 years, the percentage of deaths due to NCDs (Non-Communicable Diseases) have increased steadily, as shown by the chart below. Heart disease is the most common NCD.

Source: IHME GBD Visualization for India

As seen in the two charts below, all states have witnessed reduction in "red" (Communicable, Maternal, Neonatal & Nutritional Diseases) and increase in "blue" (Non-Communicable Diseases). Some states have more red than others, but the percentage of blue is increasing steadily in all states.

Source: IHME GBD Visualization for India

Source: IHME GBD Visualization for India

Let's say we are 20 years old today. Twentyfive years from now, we'll be 45. By that time, blues will dominate even more!

Among the blues, the most prominent illness is heart disease.

In states like Punjab, heart disease is much more prominent than others.

Source: IHME GBD Visualization for India

The chart below appears at offset 28:44 of this presentation by Dr Koushik Reddy, a Whole Food Plant-Based cardiologist in USA. He's also Fellow, American College of Lifestyle Medicine.

Source: Cardiovascular Diseases in India Compared With the United States by D Prabhakaran et al, J Am Coll Cardiol, Vol 72, Issue 1, 3 July 2018, p 79-95.

What does the chart say?

• Y-axis is CVD DALY where DALY means Disability-Adjusted Life Years, defined as "The sum of years of potential life lost due to premature mortality and the years of productive life lost due to disability." and CVD means Cardiovascular Disease. So CDV DALY means DALY due to CVD.
• The height of the bars is proportional to relative contribution of that factor.
• Insight: Dietary risks are #1 and far more important than exercise / sedentary lifestyle and tobacco.
• Surprisingly, India leads in dietary risk factor too, more than USA! And this has been the case from 1990s to 2010s! How is that possible? Isn't India 40% vegetarian? Isn't USA less than 5% vegetarian, with heavy intake of meat, dairy & processed foods? Doesn't USA have almost 40% obesity rates in 2015-2016? How come India is worse than USA when it comes to dietary risks for heart disease?
• One risk factor on which India seems to do better is BMI (Body Mass Index). But we need to keep in mind that Indian scientists have defined India-specific BMI cut-offs (WHO guidelines allow regions in the world to define their own region-specific BMI cut-offs). If India-specific cut-offs were used, would the BMI-related risk factors outweight USA?