The eastern diabetes epidemic
27 Feb 2006
Economic growth in east Asia has led its people to discover a taste for high-calorie, high-fat, Westernised food, and they are beginning to suffer the consequences. Growing urbanisation, rapid industrialisation and increasing obesity associated with reduced physical activity are contributing to an epidemic of diabetes that has killed as many as AIDS but has received a fraction of the attention. Professor Pierre Lefebvre, president of the World Diabetes Foundation (WDF), says, “It is called the tsunami disease. We know it is coming and it will come if we do not do something to prevent it.”