Nearly one in four Sri Lankan adults – 23 percent – and one in three adults or 31 percent in the Colombo district had diabetes while another one in three had high blood sugar levels in 2019, according to a large-scale national survey jointly conducted by a number of institutes.
Researchers representing several Sri Lankan universities, the Medical Research Institute (MRI) in Colombo, and the Institute for Health Policy (IHP) found that Sri Lanka had the highest rate of diabetes in all of Asia and one of the highest in the world.
The study results were published in the London-based British Medical Journal Open Diabetes Research and Care.
The study found that diabetes is more common in Sri Lankans who are overweight, and those who are better-off or living in more developed areas of the country.
The study findings show that diabetes develops at lower body weights in Sri Lankans than in Europeans, with one in five Sri Lankans (21 percent) of normal body weight having diabetes. https://economynext.com/nearly-one-in-four-sri-lankans-have-diabetes-asias-highest-rate-of-the-disease-112973/