More than 4,000 experts in diabetes research and medicine from all over Asia met last month at a conference in Kyoto, Japan, where a new mandate called the Kyoto Declaration on Diabetes was drawn up. The mission: to eliminate the disease in Asia.
The fourth Asian Association for the Study of Diabetes (AASD) scientific meeting, jointly held with the ninth International Diabetes Federation Western Pacific Region(IDF-WPR) Congress, saw speakers emphasise the importance of research specific to the region and how gains in diabetes care must be made for the sake of Asia's health.
The AASD executive board made a strong appeal for prioritising science-navigated care and research in the region. "Diabetes in Asia today is as big and uncontrollable as a tsunami, and being from Japan - I know exactly what a tsunami wave feels like," said Professor Nigishi Hotta, president of this year's meeting and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Diabetes Investigation, in his opening address.
It's important to distinguish between diabetes care in Asia and the rest of the world. The highest prevalence of diabetes is in Asia, and because of diverse ethnicities and cultures, diabetes is manifested in different forms.
According to last year's Diabetes Atlas published by the IDF, 366 million people globally are living with diabetes, and the number is projected to rise to more than 565 million by 2030. East and Southeast Asia are the regions with the highest number of people with diabetes, where about 100 million people now have the disease. Type-2 diabetes, also called non-insulin-dependent diabetes, accounts for at least 90 per cent of all cases in Asia.
This statistic is coupled with the perplexing fact that the number of diabetes patients in Asia is rising even more rapidly than in other parts of the world, and the prevalence of diabetes at younger ages is becoming more prominent. Undiagnosed or poorly cared for diabetes can lead to cardiovascular disease, blindness, kidney failure and lower limb amputation.