Linking Prameha etiology with diabetes mellitus: Inferences from a matched case-control study

Diabetes is one of the most rapidly increasing disease in the contemporary context. Its rapid global rise indicates that its cause are possibly closely associated with the routine lifestyle and eating habits. Diabetes is also possibly the medical condition, which presents with a preclinical phase having a possibility of reversal if its possible causes can be seriously understood and eliminated. Experiences of diabetes management so far had not been very promising either in prevention of its incidence or spread and prevention of its complications.

In this case, preventing diabetes by attempting to identify the risk factors and then proposing the ways to avoid them could be a most pragmatic way forward.

This study has attempted to associate Ayurvedic causes of Prameha with diabetes in a matched case-control manner (n = 24) and has shown the high association of diabetes with a few relatively less known causes such as stress (odds ratio [OR]: 7.86:1), anger (OR: 5.9:1), and excessive exposure to high ambient temperature (OR: 4.6:1).

Among the causative factors showing a high OR, stress and anger were particularly found statistically significant (P = 0.0173 and 0.0145, respectively).

On the basis of these results, this can be proposed that if such studies are done on larger basis and possibly in a prospective cohort manner, it can open a completely new area of identifying the risk factors to diabetes. Such revealing knowledge will not only help us knowing about diabetes better but also definitely help us to prevent diabetes to a large extent.