AsianScientist (Jul. 23, 2012) – More than three-quarters of Chinese adults have at least one risk factor for type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular disease, reveals new data in a long-term study published this week in Obesity.
Rates of hypertension, diabetes, and triglycerides are particularly high, even in the young and trim, say a team of researchers from the United States and China.
While the risks are highest among overweight adults, 33 percent of those who aren’t overweight also have at least one cardiometabolic risk factor. Adults at a healthy weight are less likely to be screened for these factors.
“The fact that high levels of risk were present even in non-overweight adults is highly concerning, given the societal and economic costs of these diseases,” said Penny Gordon-Larsen, Ph.D., the study’s principal investigator.
“Rates of risk increase dramatically with age, even in the non-overweight adults. Of even greater concern is the fact that we see these high levels of risk in individuals living across the entire country – in rural and urban areas.”
The new data come from the longest ongoing study in China, the China Health and Nutrition Survey, a joint project of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Chinese Center for Disease Control National Institute of Nutrition and Food Safety.
This longitudinal study has followed more than 29,000 people in 300 communities throughout China from 1989 to 2011.
Surveys were conducted in 1989, 1991, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2009, and 2011. The study is funded by the National Institutes of Health with additional funding from the Chinese Center for Disease Control.
China, home to more than 1.3 billion people, has seen unprecedented economic growth in the past two decades, accompanied by equally dramatic changes in diet, activity, inactivity and obesity.
The 2009 study, which followed a randomly selected sample representing 56 percent of the Chinese population, found large increases in overweight and cardiometabolic risk factors, even in young adults.
“China has had a history of undernutrition followed by the most rapid increase in obesity and related diseases worldwide,” said co-author Barry M. Popkin, Ph.D. “Given the current picture, we can expect tremendous health burden in China in the coming years.”
The article can be found at: Gordon-Larsen P et al. (2012) Discordant Risk: Overweight and Cardiometabolic Risk in Chinese Adults.
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Source: UNC.
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