The growing popularity of Western fast food is fueling a diabetes boom across Southeast Asia, Australian researchers said yesterday.
Studies found about 11 percent of men and 12 percent of women in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City had type 2 diabetes without knowing it, on top of the 4 percent of people who are diagnosed sufferers.
“Dietary patterns have been changing dramatically in Vietnam in recent years, particularly in the cities as they become more Westernized,” said Tuan Nguyen of Sydney’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research. “There are fast-food outlets everywhere.”
He said the findings, based on testing a random sample of 721 men and 1,421 women, mirrored the results of a similar study carried out in Thailand.
“Because of that, we feel very confident that we can extrapolate our findings to other parts of Southeast Asia including Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia and Laos,” he said.
Type 2, the most common form of diabetes, is caused by high levels of fat and sugar in the diet and a lack of exercise, and can lead to heart disease, vision loss, limb amputation and kidney failure.
Co-author Lesley Campbell said developing countries were facing a “sad story” where they are affected by Western lifestyle diseases alongside hunger and poverty, but without the health resources to treat them.
“Unfortunately, we are watching, in just over a generation, a very rapid increase in diabetes” in developing nations, she said.
The researchers have developed a simple risk assessment for diabetes, using only blood pressure and waist-to-hip ratio, which they hope will help doctors detect those most likely to have the disease.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS