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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