"Having a healthy well-balanced diet any time in your life is important for your health," she said, "but a healthy well-balanced diet during pregnancy is particularly important because of the impact on the baby long-term and potentially even on the grandchildren as well."

The warning comes after research found that rats that had poor nutrition during pregnancy gave birth to young with a high risk of type 2 diabetes, an illness that typically strikes in middle age.

As is it, diabetes in women, especially pregnant women, is already having far reaching health ramifications in India. According to Dr Anoop Misra, "Women should be more addressed not only for diabetes but also for heart disease and should be targeted in a special way for prevention programmes. They gain weight in each pregnancy. As their age increases, weight also increases and so do chances of high blood sugar. Events preceding blood sugar elevation are more prevalent in women than in men. So we foresee that in future diabetes will be more prevalent in women."

"Hence it is very important for every woman to be screened for diabetes, which needs to be controlled on an emergency basis in case of pregnant women. If a woman living with diabetes becomes pregnant, her blood sugar needs to be controlled in a more effective manner, as even a slight increase in it will result in an ill effect on the foetus—increase in weight, abortion, malformation, etc. so very often it is advisable to start on insulin during pregnancy and switch over to oral agents later on. This warrants the need to integrate diabetes screening for women in the existing health systems, especially when a woman visits a health centre during pregnancy. Unfortunately, this is not happening at the moment" further adds Dr Anoop Misra.

Dr Anoop Misra is the recepient of Padma Shri - one of the highest national civilian awards in India, and also the prestigious Dr BC Roy Award - the highest award for medicine in India. He is the Director and Head, Department of Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases, Fortis Hospitals, Delhi, and President of National Diabetes Obesity and Cholesterol Foundation (N-DOC).

On one hand women are more prone to have diabetes, but on the other hand they can help more than men in controlling this epidemic. If a young woman, on the threshold of marriage, is made aware of and educated about diabetes, it will benefit a lot many people. If she becomes aware of the importance of proper nutrition and physical exercises, she would be well equipped to control, not only her own health, but of her entire family. She is then likely to take more care of herself during pregnancy, the benefits of which will pass on to the unborn child.

Unfortunately women are a neglected lot, especially in developing countries. They are taught from early childhood to care for others at the cost of their own health and well being. It is unlikely for a common Indian woman to go for mandatory health checkups, unless there are serious external symptoms of a disease. And then perhaps it becomes too late to take corrective action.

The tide of diabetes is rising in urban as well as rural India, with nearly 51million Indians currently suffering from the disease. This number is expected to increase by 150% during the next 15 years. Jason Gale talks of India’s diabetes paradox – "In a land where chronic hunger plagues a