Dr Eric J. Rubin, the Editor-in-chief of "New England Journal of Medicine" and renowned American Professor of Microbiology and Infectious diseases is currently on a visit to India and Union Minister of Science Dr Jitendra Singh.

Dr Jitendra Singh is himself also a known Diabetologist and Professor of Medicine. Both the medical academicians discussed future perspectives of Medical Research with special focus on two important issues relevant to India’s healthcare, Diabetes and Tuberculosis.

Referring to recent research on diabetes, Dr Singh said it has now been proven beyond doubt that Indian origin diaspora living in the United States and European countries for several generations still continue to have higher preponderance to develop Type 2 diabetes mellitus even though they were no longer living in India and the environmental conditions they are living in is different.

Dr Jitendra Singh said, “Our central obesity profile is also different from others. For example, in India, prevalence of central obesity is high and almost equal in both males and females whereas in the western population, the individual may be apparently looking obese but has less visceral fat.”

He further said that it is heartening to note that new breakthroughs are being reported in the diagnosis and treatment of the killer number one disease of our time globally.

Dr Singh asserted that researchers led by Hiroshi Ohno at the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (IMS) in Japan have discovered a type of gut bacteria that might help improve insulin resistance, and thus protect against the development of obesity and type-2 diabetes.

He informed, “The study, published August 30 in the scientific journal Nature, involved genetic and metabolic analysis of human fecal microbiomes and then corroborating experiments in obese mice. The results were compatible with the findings from human patients and have implications for diagnosis and treatment.”