Almost 200,000 with diabetes in Asia, linked to eating Western food

[Guest guest]

BACK TO MAIN | ONLINE BOOKSTORE | HOW TO ORDER

TWN Info Service on Health Issues (November 06/11)

28 November 2006

Western fast foods and lifestyle contribute to diabetes in Asian kids

Diabetes among Asian children has reached epidemic levels. This grim

warning in the medical journal The Lancet comes at a time when urban

communities are increasingly becoming more Westernised in their

lifestyle and food habits. The article below highlights the problem.

It is reproduced with the permission of South-North Development

Monitor (SUNS) # 6140, 14 November 2006.

With best wishes

e Hong

TWN

Health: Chip'n Cola diets causing diabetes in Asian kids?

By Marwaan Macan-Markar, IPS, Bangkok, 13 November 2006

Ahead of World Diabetes Day, marked on 14 November, a leading British

medical journal has issued a grim warning to Asian countries. Type-2

diabetes among the region's children has reached ''epidemic levels,''

says a paper published in 'The Lancet.'

''The onset of type-2 diabetes in younger age-groups is likely to

result in major economic burdens for countries in Asia due to

premature ill health and death,'' it says. ''People in Asia tend to

develop diabetes with a lesser degree of obesity at younger age,

suffer longer with complications of diabetes, and die sooner than

people in other regions.''

Type-2 diabetes is as troubling among the continent's adults, notes

the paper, whose principal writer is Prof. Kun-Ho Yoon, a South

Korean diabetes specialist at the Kangnam St. 's Hospital in

Seoul. ''The proportion of people with type-2 diabetes and obesity

have increased throughout Asia, and the rates of increase show no

signs of slowing.''

Consequently, it warns that Asia, which in 2003 had 194 million

people with diabetes, could see the number rise to 333 million by

2025.

Currently, there are over 240 million people worldwide living with

diabetes, states the World Diabetes Day website.

The rate of diabetes among adults in countries such as the Asian

giants China and India and others like South Korea, Indonesia and

Thailand are contributing to this increase, states the study. ''India

and China have the greatest numbers of people with diabetes, and are

likely to remain in this position in 2025, by which time they could

each have 20 million affected individuals.''

In fact, China helps to illustrate the impact of diabetes among the

young. ''The proportion of children aged 7 to 18 years who were obese

and overweight increased 28-fold between 1985 and 2000,'' states the

report. ''The age at which type-2 diabetes develops has also

decreased, and the prevalence of the disease in children and

adolescents has risen. Cases of type-2 diabetes now greatly outnumber

cases of type-1 diabetes in children and adolescents.''

The picture is different in developed countries with people of

European descent, where ''diabetes affects mainly those who are older

than 65 years.'' So a health problem that affects only ''a minority

of youth worldwide is threatening the majority in Asia.''

And if that is not worrying enough, the World Diabetes Day website

adds that in many parts of the world, ''insulin, the main life-saving

medication that children with diabetes need to survive, is not

available.'' As a result, ''many children die of diabetes,

particularly in low and middle-income countries.''

In 2005, an estimated 1.1 million people of all ages died from

diabetes, states the World Health Organisation (WHO), adding that the

annual diabetes death toll could be as high as 2.9 million if one

accounts for death ''in which diabetes was a contributory condition.''

The warning in the 'The Lancet' comes at a time when public health

experts in the region are fighting an uphill battle to get the

increasingly urbanised communities in Asia to change their new

lifestyles and food habits to stall the spread of the disease.

Diabetes type-2 is caused largely by excess body weight and physical

inactivity, according to the WHO. The high consumption of fast foods

and snacks and drinks high in sugar are equally to blame.

Type-2 diabetes results from ''the body's ineffective use of

insulin,'' the Geneva-based health body adds. Type-1 diabetes, on the

other hand, ''is characterised by a lack of insulin production.''

In Thailand - which ranks as having some of the highest rates of

adult obesity in Asia due to a combination of a sedentary lifestyle

and high consumption of foods packed with sugar and little nutrients -

public health officials are experimenting with a range of

initiatives to get the message across.

''We have been warning people that this new disease cannot be solved

at a hospital,'' says Dr. Chaisri Supornsilaphachai, director of the

non-communicable disease bureau at the public health ministry. ''They

are being told about the price they will have to pay for becoming

more Westernised in their habits.''

Changing food habits often figure in this drive in a bustling

metropolis like Bangkok, which has an abundance of the world's

established fast-food outlets, in addition to a surfeit of

convenience stores offering a range of snacks high in sugars.

''In the past, the Thai diet had more vegetables, fish and fruit,''

Chaisri told IPS. ''Now, people want fried chicken and food with a

lot of fat.''

Elsewhere in Asia, governments are being encouraged to consider a

spike in taxes to save their adults and children from becoming obese

and succumbing to diabetes.

''There is a need to tax sugary drinks as a way of reducing

consumption,'' Dr. Tommaso Cavalli-Sforza, regional adviser in

nutrition and food safety at the WHO's Western Pacific regional

office, said in a telephone interview from Manila.

''The funds generated could be used to promote healthy diets and more

physical activity.''

Public health experts in the region have also stepped up efforts to

rope schools into diabetes-related initiatives, pressing the need for

a change in the curriculum to emphasise the need for healthy diets

and more exercise.

''Schools are a good point of intervention to stall the spread of

obesity and diabetes,'' says Cavalli-Sforza. ''Schools in Singapore

have already begun such initiatives.''