The Sensex is soaring to new highs, but there’s a new high India may soon touch and there’s nothing healthy about it.

Over the next decade,  India’s burgeoning consumer class is headed for an  onslaught of chronic diseases, including diabetes, hypertension, cancer, and HIV/AIDS due to lifestyle patterns, environmental causes and pollution.

As more Indians reach or exceed an income level roughly equivalent to the official poverty line in Western Europe, the nation’s consumer class has adopted consumption patterns and lifestyles similar to their counterparts in the industrial world. As a result, we’ve even imported their diseases, according to a recent report by the Worldwatch Institute.

Diets high in fats and sugars and a lack of exercise-two lifestyle trends that increasingly afflict people in developing countries-are major factors behind the rise in certain chronic diseases.

At 30 million, India is now home to the largest population of diabetics in the world, and that number is expected to bloat to 57 million by 2025.

Increasing prosperity has also invited lifestyle-related diseases (LRDs) ranging from obesity and attention disorders to disabling conditions like diabetes, angina and osteoporosis.