
International efforts to develop rice varieties to combat China’s diabetes epidemic
THE number of diabetes patients is rising all across China and groups of scientists all over the world are working to develop new rice strains to prevent more people from succumbing to the disease.
China registered the highest number of cases in the world in 2016 – 109.6 million adults were recorded to suffer from diabetes, and by 2040, another 40 million could join their ranks. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 90 percent of that number comprises sufferers of type-2 diabetes, which is largely a result of lifestyle choices.
It’s a shocking number when you consider as many as half of China’s adult population is already pre-diabetic and are at high-risk of developing the preventable type-2 diabetes, as well as other cardiovascular diseases.
The landscape of diabetes innovation is changing and China is rising to the top of the leaderboard. More at https://t.co/zfvKO6mqtX pic.twitter.com/sdutLfqR4D
— Resolute Innovation (@team_resolute) May 2, 2017
Chinese companies have been at the forefront of a series of inventions aimed at helping patients with diabetes or those seeking to prevent the disease in the first place. Chinese companies have overtaken German ones for the first time as the leader of diabetes innovations sector.
A researcher from East China Normal University, HYe Haifeng , has produced a device that marries telecommunications technology with cell-based therapy and optogenetics. It can work through a smartphone to control engineered cells to produce insulin when needed.
But some scientists are taking a more preventive approach to help with Chi
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