NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - China now has more people with
diabetes than any other country, a new report shows, making it clear
that the nation's soaring economic growth is taking a toll on public
health.
According to the report, more than 92 million adults in China
have diabetes, and nearly 150 million more are well on their way to
developing it. The disease is more common in people with large
waistlines and in those who live in cities, the report indicates.
"For every person in the world with HIV there are three people in
China with diabetes," said David Whiting, an epidemiologist with the
International Diabetes Federation, who was not involved in the research.
The Federation projected last year that some 435 million people
would have diabetes by 2030. "With this new study, we're going to have
to rerun our estimate," Whiting told Reuters Health.
The report, published Thursday in the New England Journal of
Medicine, is based on a nationally representative sample of more than
46,000 people who were tested for diabetes.
For each person, doctors measured blood sugar levels up to two
hours after subjects had swallowed a sugar solution or, in cases where
diabetes was suspected, eaten a bun. Because people with diabetes can't
use the sugar in their blood effectively, a high blood sugar level
indicates disease.
Based on their findings, the researchers calculate that about 50
million men and 42 million women have diabetes, or almost 1 in 10
adults. And in most cases, the disease is undiagnosed.
The prevalence is twice as high as estimates suggested by
previous studies, which did not use World Health
Organization-recommended tests to diagnose diabetes, and is similar to
US numbers. It would place China far ahead of India, whose estimated 50
million diabetics lands it a dubious second place in terms of the total
number of people with diabetes.