Childhood Diabetes in China: Enormous variation by place and ethnic group

Abstract

China has an extremely low overall IDDM incidence rate. China also has the greatest geographic and ethnic variation seen for any country.

Ecologic analysis of some immune-related disorders, including type 1 diabetes, in Australia: latitude, regional ultraviolet radiation, and disease prevalence.

“…The stronger association found between latitude and type 1 diabetes prevalence in Australia is consistent with similar incidence gradients found in Western Europe and North America (DERIG 1988;Karges et al 1995;Karvonen et al 1993) and also within China (Yang et al 1998). The corresponding inverse association between UVR levels in Australia and type 1 diabetes prevalence is also consistent with previous photoimmunologic work showing that ultraviolet B irradiation has systemic as well as local immunosuppressive effects in humans and animals Duthie et al 1999;Garssen et al 1999;Sleijffers et al 2001), as does also ultraviolet A irradiation (Nghiem et al 2001).…”

Comparative incidence of Type I diabetes in children aged under 15 years from South Asian and White or Other ethnic backgrounds in Leicestershire, UK, 1989 to 1998

“…Substantial variation in relatively low incidence rates across Asia has been reported. Both the Karachi and Mauritius estimates are similar to data reported from other areas of Asia [25,26]. These studies were urban-based and no account is taken of rural children.…”

“…Type I diabetes incidence rates reported from Asia are generally very low compared with Western Europe [25,26]. Few data were reported until relatively recently, owing to the difficulty of establishing good quality population-based surveillance in large geographical areas with small numbers of patients.…”

Altering Trends in the Epidemiology of Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus in Children and Adolescents

“…However in some areas such as Puerto Rico, Kuwait and Sardinia there is an unexplained highly increased incidence [4]. The lowest incidence in the world is observed in China, where an enormous geographic variation in the development risk is observed [5]. A long time ago, during the 5th century BC, Hippocrates described diabetes as a 'rare condition' while later on Arataeus the Cappadocian described it as 'not being frequent among men' (http://wwunix.oit.umass.edu/~abhu000/diabetes/index.html).…”

“…In this chapter we review the changing trends in the epidemiology of T1DM and we present data on the rising incidence of T1DM in Greek Cypriot population. evaluated by grouping the populations with very low (<1/100.000 per yr), low (1-4/100.000 per yr), intermediate (5)(6)(7)(8)(9).99/100.000 per yr), high (10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19).99/100.000 per yr) and very high (>20/100.000 per yr) incidence [2]. The different annual incidence rates of T1DM comparing different countries of the world (0.1 to 57.6 per 100000) are displayed in figure 1 [1].…”