Diabetes in China may have reached “ alert level”, health researchers have warned, with nearly 12 per cent of adults, or 114 million people, suffering from the disease – and the majority of them unaware of their condition. The Journal of the American Medical Association has just published results of the most comprehensive survey for diabetes ever conducted in China, revealing a shocking prevelance of the obesity-linked type 2 diabetes, which increases the risk of stroke, heart attack and kidney failure.The survey’s findings add 22 million diabetics – equivalent to the population of Australia – to a 2007 estimate, meaning almost one in three diabetes sufferers globally is in China.
Dr Ning Guang, the lead researcher, said: “The prevalence of diabetes in the Chinese adult population has surpassed that of India and is now close to that of the United States.” Dr Ning is the vice-president of the Ruijin hospital, affiliated with the Shanghai Jiaotong University Medical School.
“Although it’s not appropriate to compare them in such a simple way, China is now home to the largest diabetes population in the world,” Dr Ning told the Xinhua news agency. Rising prosperity in China has lifted many millions out of poverty and given rise to a whole new middle class in the world’s most populous nation. But increased wealth is translating into changing diets, and the traditional staple meal of rice, vegetable and fish or chicken is being replaced with trips to fast-food restaurants.
Nearly 12 per cent of Chinese adults have be diagnosed with diabetes, while about 50 per cent are at the risk of developing the disease, according to the study, which means up to 114 million Chinese adults are diabetic and another 493 million are thought to be pre-diabetic.
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6 comments:
It just shows how different ethnic groups are so ill equipped to cope with modern junk food! We have a similar problem in New Zealand with the Pacific Islanders. The diabetes and obesity rate with them is off the chart.
It is very rare to see a slim Pacific Islander yet I saw an old video recently showing the arrival of these people in the early 1960s. They were all slim!! Now they are amongst the most obese in the world. Clearly the western diet (well junk food) is simply not what they are genetically meant to be eating.
Yet again this only goes to show that the change in eating habits and primarily processed foods is at best making us ill and at worse slowly killing us.
Kate
Prosperity does not always bring you want you want
A Dr told me many years ago that Indian immigrants trying to adhere to their strict vegetarian diet when they arrived still suffered from massive weight gain because our versions of many of their staple foods are different to those they were used to in their country of origin.I suppose they don't get the same balance. If we think of say, fruit and vegetables grown here as opposed to those grown in countries with a warmer climate, we can see that things don't translate so easily.
I was interested in Lynda's comment about the pacific islanders. I had always assumed that they were naturally larger. It makes it all the more worrying that the American immigration authorities are advising newly arrived immigrants to adopt an "American style diet"
Kath
@ Kath's comment
Yes Pacific Islanders are bigger boned and heavier but they are not "naturally" obese. Dr Westin Price said that the Maori's were "the most physically perfect race living on the face of the earth" when he visited in the 1930s. Now Maori's have one of the highest rates of obesity and diabetes along with the Pacific Islanders. Very sad as this was not always case.
According to wikipedia China is now the biggest potato growing country in the world.
Kath
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