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- “The findings from over 3000 members aim to showcase the reasons behind the exponential increase in the number of diabetes patients despite higher awareness, availability of healthcare facilities and better medicines
- They also indicate the potential of a technology like digital therapeutics in the management of diabetes and its associated complications”
Mumbai, January 05, 2023:
Fitterfly, a leading health-tech company working in the field of digital therapeutics (DTx), today released its year-end report called Reimagining Diabetes Care Report 2022 for the period January 2022 to December 2022. Based on a sample size of over 3000 people who enrolled into Fitterfly’s Diabetes Management programs, the report underscores the need to reimagine, rethink, and reassess diabetes before it reaches pandemic proportions. It also endeavours to understand the missing link in the diabetes care circle.
One of the reasons why the numbers are exponentially increasing is the fact that Type 2 diabetes is a complex phenomenon with multiple factors like nutrition, stress, fitness, sleep, and pain affecting the condition.
Some insights from the report –
The data shows that younger people are now seeking solutions for diabetes management. About 38% of people with diabetes were in the 31 to 45-year category and about 5% were below 30 years of age.
People from non-metros (45%) were also more aware and were using new-age digital therapies for managing diabetes.
It was also found that there is a strong connection between obesity and diabetes with over 89% of the people with this condition being overweight or obese. Of the respondents, 56% either had hypertension or high cholesterol and 14% had underlying conditions such as PCOS or hypothyroidism – all of which were a part of the metabolic syndrome.
As per the report, about 51% of the respondents were diagnosed with diabetes in the last 5 years and are in the golden period of achieving remission. Even if half of all Indians diagnosed with diabetes are able to avoid medicines, it would have a direct impact on expenses as well as productivity.
Stress levels were higher among at least 63% of the respondents in the age group of 18 to 30 years. While 58% of this was due to an emotional burden, the remainder was due to the stress of managing diabetes (42%) and physician distress (29%). It is interesting to note that there was a progressive reduction after the age of 60 and only 28% of respondents experienced elevated stress levels.
Speaking about this, Dr Arbinder Singal, Co-Founder and CEO, Fitterfly, said, “Even with the availability of more doctors, better medications, cheaper blood tests and online access to virtually all aspects of diabetes care, the tide of diabetes or its complications continues unabated. Our data is showing for the first time that people with diabetes in India are adopting digital therapies as the first line of treatment or adjuvant to pills with good efficacy.
This adoption is not only limited to metro’s but also in smaller cities. The multimodal approach covering personalised nutrition, stress & sleep management and getting them to fitness cover the missing pieces for diabetes care on a day-to-day basis. Use of technology to cover these as a digital therapeutics program has led to outcomes which are better or equal to conventional pharmacotherapy. We believe large-scale adoption of technology is the only way to improve outcomes and make a dent in the diabetes burden in India. With our expanding partnerships with doctors, employers, wellness and insurance companies, we hope that 2023 will be much better than 2022..”
The findings indicated that people who enrolled in Fitterfly’s programme experienced improvement across different levels namely BMI, weight, calorie intake, exercise, pain threshold, stress, and sleep. Around 85% of members reduced their HbA1c by an average of 1.6% which is comparable to a combination drug therapy for diabetes.
The average exercise duration also increased by 61% to 337 mins from the earlier 180 mins. About 82% of people improved on their musculoskeletal fitness scores by an average of 158%. The programme also enabled an increase in their fitness scores by 25%.
With award-winning, clinically validated and personalized digital therapeutic programs in their kitty, Fitterfly has been championing the advanced way to control diabetes by focusing on personalized glycemic response-based coaching. Fitterfly Diabetes Care is a first-of-its-kind CGM based program that moves from a tick-based bundling to an outcome-based approach. The aim is to increase the quality of life and health for people with diabetes.
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