Epidemic obesity and diabetes threatens Asia

By Megan Rauscher

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In Asia, obesity and type 2 diabetes has reached epidemic proportions and the rate of increase shows no signs of slowing, doctors report in The Lancet this week.

The rate at which type 2 diabetes has increased throughout Asia during the past three decades and the likelihood that it will continue to increase at this rate, "provide substantial grounds for concern," they write.

While the US has seen a doubling in the prevalence of type 2 diabetes (from 4% to 8% of the population) during the past 40 years, increases in newly developed and developing countries have been even more dramatic.

In Chinese adults, the prevalence tripled between 1980 and 1996, from roughly 1% to 3.2%.

"The data from the Indian subcontinent are equally disconcerting, and the same trend can be seen in other countries in the region," warn Dr. Kun-Ho Yoon from Kangnam St. Mary's Hospital, Seoul, Korea and colleagues.

By 2025, India and China could each have 20 million people affected by diabetes. In Korea, Indonesia, and Thailand, rates of type 2 diabetes have increased three- to five-fold in the past 30 years.

"The health consequences of this epidemic threaten to overwhelm health-care systems in the region (and) urgent action is needed," state the authors.

Studies suggests that people in Asia tend to develop diabetes at a younger age and lower weight, suffer longer with chronic complications of the disease, and die sooner than those in developed countries.

The epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes, Yoon warned in comments to Reuters Health, "might happen at a quite early stage of economic development of Asian countries, so nationwide preventive and appropriate management strategies have to be built, even in the low income countries."

Rapidly changing behavioral patterns of young Asians (fast food and more sedentary lifestyle) are partly to blame for the epidemic. Between 1985 and 2000, China saw a 28-fold increase in the proportion of children aged 7 to 18 years who were obese and overweight.

Promoting a change in lifestyle is "the first step" in combating obesity and type 2 diabetes in Asia, according to the authors.

SOURCE: The Lancet, November 11, 2006.