China sounds alarm as diabetes cases rise
Print Edition
Diabetes in China may have reached “an alert level” with one in 10 adults suffering from the disease while most patients are unaware of their condition, Chinese researchers said.
In a report carried in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers warned that China could face “a major epidemic of diabetes-related complications,” including cardiovascular disease, stroke and chronic kidney disease in the near future without an effective national intervention.
“The prevalence of diabetes in the Chinese adult population has surpassed that of India and is now close to that of the United States,” said lead researcher Ning Guang from Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai.
“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,” Ning said.
About 11.6 percent of Chinese adults were found to be diabetic, while 50.1 percent of the adults were prediabetic, according to a survey of 98,658 people across all the 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions on the mainland in 2010.
It means that diabetes has become one of the biggest public health concerns in China, which has about 113.9 million diabetes patients and 493.4 million people with prediabetes.
To properly study the incidence and control of the disease, Ning and his colleagues teamed up with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and carried out the survey by adopting the latest internationally recognized diabetes diagnostic standard.
The survey found the incidence of diabetes among Chinese adult men was 12.1 percent and 11 percent among women. Only 25.8 percent of diabetic patients had received treatment, while less than 40 percent had managed to keep it under control.
As the number of diabetic cases rises, the general awareness of the disease is known only to 30.1 percent of the population.
About 1.3 million people died due to diabetic-related complications worldwide in 2010. In addition to cerebral and cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease and blindness, latest research have linked cancer to diabetes.
“The increasing prevalence of diabetes and prediabetes poses social and public health challenges,” Ning said.
“We need to work hard to create a health-promoting environment, encourage self-management and strengthen public health services to ensure efficient prevention and early treatment of the disease.”
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