Doctors in Scotland and India are to work together on a major project to improve diabetes care, including the use of smartphones for screening, it has been announced.
The Dundee researchers will gain access to data about some 400,000 patients with diabetes in India.
They will also test new ways of screening for the disease, such as the use of smartphones and retinal scans.
The University of Dundee has been awarded some £7 million from the UK National Institute of Health’s global research programme to undertake the project. They will work with Dr V Mohan in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
Researcher Professor Colin Palmer said: “Current knowledge on how diabetes develops, how patients respond to medications and the causes of medical complications that arise are largely derived from studies on white European ancestry populations.
"This is despite the fact that diabetes in Europeans is very different to diabetes in South Asians.
“We need to understand more about diabetes in different populations. There is an urgent need for a large in-depth study of the specific causes and consequences of diabetes in India in order to identify different subtypes of diabetes that exist in India and understand how best to manage each subtype.
“This project will address that. It will also look at new ways of providing diabetes screening, using smartphone technology and retinal scans, which will provide valuable insights into how we can deliver more cost-effective and affordable diagnosis and treatment of diabetes, which is an issue here in the UK and around the world.”
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