China Tops India on World Diabetes Ladder

China Tops India on World Diabetes Ladder: China has overtaken India as the global epicenter of the diabetes epidemic after a study showed twice as many Chinese are afflicted with the disease as previously estimated. Type 2 diabetes, mostly caused by a high-calorie diet and sedentary lifestyle, afflicts 92.4 million adults in China, a study published recently in The New England Journal of Medicine found. Earlier surveys calculated 43.2 million people with diabetes in the country, fewer than the 50.8 million that the Brussels-based International Diabetes Federation estimates are in India. More than half of China's people with diabetes haven't been diagnosed. China will lose $558 billion of national income to diabetes and heart disease between 2005 and 2015, the World Health Organization and World Economic Forum said in a 2008 report.