Replies to post #199614 on Biotech Values

[iwfal]

Regarding diabetes in China, the International Diabetes Federation refers to it as the world's largest diabetes epidemic! Almost 12% of Chinese adults have it. Perhaps even worse, one study showed that fully half of people tested had pre-diabetes blood glucose levels.

Given that per the below cite 38 percent of Americans meet one or more of the definitions of diabetes the China number isn't really surprising (but note that I am not certain the China numbe uses the same definition so it may not be completely comparable). I think the number is definitely inflated some, but there is no doubt there is a big problem coming.

FWIW I think it is a virtual certainty that the problem is multifactorial, but one of the more intriguing possibilities is that a significant part of it may be 'epigenetic' (aka Lamarkian) and thus particularly difficult to walk back from an epidemic perspective.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2434682