'Catastrophe' as 114 million Chinese suffer diabetes thanks to economic boom
Shocking survey shows 11.6pc of people suffer from rampant diet-related disease, with around one third of the world's diabetics living in China
About 11.6 per cent of adults in mainland China, or 114 million people, suffer from diabetes, a comprehensive nationwide survey on the disease shows.
It means that almost one in three diabetes sufferers globally is in China, a development one world expert on the disease called a catastrophe. It is now more common in China than in the US, where 11.3 per cent of adults are diabetic.
Rapid changes in lifestyle are the key factor. American diabetics are usually overweight, but those on the mainland are not, the researchers found.
"Diabetes may have reached an alert level in the Chinese general population, with the potential for a major epidemic of diabetes-related complications, including cardiovascular disease, stroke, and chronic kidney disease," wrote the research team, led by Guang Ning from the laboratory for endocrine and metabolic diseases at the Ministry of Health.
"Poor nutrition in utero and in early life combined with overnutrition in later life may contribute to the accelerated epidemic of diabetes in China."
