Xinhuanet - English :: China owes growing number of diabetics to obesity

Xinhuanet: "BEIJING, Nov. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- On World Diabetes Day, a group of people assembled in a Beijing park, trying to stay warm in the chilly, windy November dusk. They were gearing up for a 'walk campaign,' launched simultaneously around the globe Sunday in an effort to fight the deadly disease.
Diabetics from 45 Beijing communities attended the walk -- morethan organizers had expected.
China now has more than 50 million diabetics and their number is rising by an average of 1.5 million to two million a year, making the country with the largest number of diabetes patients inthe world, according to a forum on prevention and treatment of diabetes held last Sunday in Chongqing municipality, southwest China.
'The soaring economy has raised people's quality of life in China since the early 1990s, with more high-calorie food on people's dining tables,' said Wang He, deputy head of the Guangdong Second Provincial Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital and a diabetes specialist, 'which has triggered a rapid growth of diabetes cases.' "