What Cause The Diabetes Epidemic in Southeast Asia?

Junk food refers to food that is high in calories but low in nutritional content, according to the definition by Merriam-Webster. For decades, health experts have blamed junk food for causing obesity epidemic, especially among the youngsters.

On July 7, 2010, Australian and Vietnamese researchers from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research warned that the growing popularity of Western junk food is the culprit responding for the diabetes boom across Southeast Asia.

The study showed that about 11 percent of men and 12 percent of women in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City had Type-2 diabetes without even realizing it, in addition to the 4 percent of people who had already been diagnosed with diabetes. Their findings were based on testing a random sample of more than 2,000 people including 721 men and 1,421 women.

Being the most common form of diabetes, Type-2 diabetes is a medical disorder that is caused by high level of sugar and fat in the diet and inadequate exercise. If a patient with Type-2 diabetes were not getting timely treatment, he or she would face a higher risk of developing many complications including heart disease, kidney failure, limb amputation and vision loss.

In recent years, dietary patterns have been altered dramatically in Vietnam, particularly in cities that have become more westernized. Fast food outlets are available everywhere. This is rather sad because while developing countries are facing hunger and poverty, they are also affected by Western lifestyle diseases without adequate health resources to deal with.

Since similar study carried out in Thailand supported the link, the researchers are confident that their findings could be extrapolated to other parts of Southeast Asia including Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore.

Meanwhile, the researchers have also developed a simple risk assessment for diabetes, using blood pressure and waist-to-hip ratio. Hopefully, this can help doctors detect those who are most likely to have diabetes.