BEIJING, april 15 -- China now has some 18 million obese adults, and 64 million adults may be at risk of cardiovascular disease because of poor dietary habits and lack of exercise, a study published this Saturday in The Lancet says.

    

An obese man is massaged by a nurse in China. China now has some 18 million obese adults, and 64 million adults may be at risk of cardiovascular disease because of poor dietary habits and lack of exercise, a study published this Saturday in The Lancet says. [AFP]

The figures are extrapolated from an in-depth survey of nearly 19,000 people aged 35 to 74, randomly selected from 20 rural and urban areas in China.

    The volunteers were weighed, their corpular fat measured and their blood monitored for pressure, glucose and cholesterol.

    Extrapolated for the country's population of 1.3 billion, the results indicate that 137 million Chinese are overweight, and 18 million of them are obese.

    Around 64 million Chinese adults have "metabolic syndrome," a term applying to overweight, high cholesterol and blood glucose levels that are known risk factors for heart attacks and artery disease.

    The study, led by He Jiang, a professor of epidemiology at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, is the latest piece of evidence to attest to obesity problems in China.

    Over-eating, especially the consumption of sweet and fatty foods and sodas, is a rising phenomenon in many fast-growing developing countries, compounded by an increasingly sedendary lifestyle.

    The new research highlighted significant differences in China between regions and the sexes.

    Overweight and metabolic syndrome were higher among people in northern China than in the south, among urban residents rather than country-dwellers and among women more than among men.

(Source: China Daily/Agencies)