Justin Joseph
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2010
- Messages
- 2,216
- Reaction score
- 0
China overtakes India as diabetes capital
Kounteya Sinha, TNN, Mar 26, 2010, 03.12am IST
NEW DELHI: This is one top spot India won't mind losing out on. China is now the world's new diabetes capital -- a position held by India so far.
A population-based national study has found that 92.4 million adults in China are diabetic, more than double of what was estimated earlier. What's worse, nearly 150 million more Chinese adults are at a stage where they will become diabetic soon.
According to countrywide figures released by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), in October 2009, China was estimated to have 43.2 million diabetics, compared to 50.8 million in India.
However, in a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on Thursday, based on a nationally representative sample of more than 46,000 people who were tested for diabetes in China, one in 10 Chinese adults were found to already have the disease while another 16% were on the verge of developing it.
The researchers calculated that about 50 million men and 42 million women have diabetes, and in most cases, the disease was undiagnosed, just like it is in India.
Dr David Whiting from IDF said this shows that the global burden of diabetes is far larger than previously estimated. "Around the world, diabetes is still largely underdiagnosed. In some poorer countries, 90% of people with diabetes are undiagnosed while even in high-income countries 30% may be undiagnosed," Dr Whiting said.
IDF, which tracks the global spread of diabetes, had said in October 2009 that the number in India is expected to go up from 50 million to a whopping 87 million -- 8.4% of the country's adult population -- by 2030.
The Chinese study, which tested people across 14 cities, revealed that one in 11 urban residents compared with one in eight in rural China had diabetes. Lead researcher Dr Yang Wenying from the China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing wrote, "The aging of population, urbanisation, nutritional changes, and decreasing levels of physical activity, with the epidemic of obesity, have probably contributed to this rapid increase."
China overtakes India as diabetes capital - India - The Times of India
Kounteya Sinha, TNN, Mar 26, 2010, 03.12am IST
NEW DELHI: This is one top spot India won't mind losing out on. China is now the world's new diabetes capital -- a position held by India so far.
A population-based national study has found that 92.4 million adults in China are diabetic, more than double of what was estimated earlier. What's worse, nearly 150 million more Chinese adults are at a stage where they will become diabetic soon.
According to countrywide figures released by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), in October 2009, China was estimated to have 43.2 million diabetics, compared to 50.8 million in India.
However, in a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on Thursday, based on a nationally representative sample of more than 46,000 people who were tested for diabetes in China, one in 10 Chinese adults were found to already have the disease while another 16% were on the verge of developing it.
The researchers calculated that about 50 million men and 42 million women have diabetes, and in most cases, the disease was undiagnosed, just like it is in India.
Dr David Whiting from IDF said this shows that the global burden of diabetes is far larger than previously estimated. "Around the world, diabetes is still largely underdiagnosed. In some poorer countries, 90% of people with diabetes are undiagnosed while even in high-income countries 30% may be undiagnosed," Dr Whiting said.
IDF, which tracks the global spread of diabetes, had said in October 2009 that the number in India is expected to go up from 50 million to a whopping 87 million -- 8.4% of the country's adult population -- by 2030.
The Chinese study, which tested people across 14 cities, revealed that one in 11 urban residents compared with one in eight in rural China had diabetes. Lead researcher Dr Yang Wenying from the China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing wrote, "The aging of population, urbanisation, nutritional changes, and decreasing levels of physical activity, with the epidemic of obesity, have probably contributed to this rapid increase."
China overtakes India as diabetes capital - India - The Times of India