A new survey that assessed the health of the country's urban workforce has revealed that major health risks among employees across India are emerging well before middle age.
The Workforce Health Index (WHI) 2026 survey conducted by Loop Health shows employees across India’s urban workforce, are facing health challenges with blood sugar levels, sleep, stress, nutrition, and liver health.
The survey, now in its second edition, is built on 816,000+ lab values across 11,400+ health reports and 9,000+ survey responses from urban working Indians, with a biomarker sample more than four times the size of WHI 2025’s 214,142 biomarker rows and 3,437 survey responses. This year’s edition also adds hospital-claims data for the first time, covering 74,000+ hospital claims.
The 2026 sample shows several core health risks have stayed stubbornly high, while a few lifestyle indicators have moved in the wrong direction. Glucose dysfunction stood at 31.3% among employees tested in 2026. Nutritional deficiencies remain widespread, with 81.4% of Vitamin D reports below the sufficiency threshold and 73.9% of employee reports recording low Vitamin B12 levels.
The report also captures changing patterns in how urban professionals access health information. 19.8% of respondents reported using AI tools such as ChatGPT for health-related information, while 19.7% cited Google and 54.0% said they referred to doctors or healthcare professionals.
Loop Health Co-Founder and COO Ryan Singh said that the most important finding from WHI 2026 is how early these health risks are showing up, with one in three professionals in their 30s already showing blood-sugar dysfunction, and that is only one part of the picture. “We are also seeing high stress, widespread Vitamin D and B12 deficiencies, and a clear gap between the health risks people have and the care they actually seek. Most of these signals are visible well before someone feels unwell. That is where prevention has to start with knowing what is happening, getting the right medical guidance and acting before a health problem becomes a much bigger one,” he said.