Why do Indians get diabetes at lower body weights than Europeans?

Sumit Jha

Mar 11, 2026

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In India, several people with normal body weight have been discovering that they have diabetes, fatty liver, or early heart disease. 

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The culprit hides in plain sight, wrapped around the abdomen, missed by the weighing scale and ignored by BMI calculations.

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Europeans and Indians at the same height and weight carry fat in fundamentally different patterns. 

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A 70-kilogram European and a 70-kilogram Indian may register identical BMI numbers, but the Indian body deposits more fat around internal organs and less under the skin.

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Scientists call this the “Asian Indian phenotype”—high fat, normal weight, low muscle mass.

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National Family Health Survey-5 data covering 636,699 households shows abdominal obesity affects 40% of Indian women and 12% of men. Among women aged 30 to 49, five to six out of every ten show abdominal obesity.

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High waist-hip ratio in young adults emerged as one of the strongest predictors of early Type 2 diabetes.