Life in General

A cheese burger one day, lasagna the next and chicken nuggets instead of a bowl of noodles.

Across the continent, a newly-affluent Asian middle class is splurging after centuries of deprivation, shaking off a diet traditionally high in vegetables and rice and low in meat and opting instead for food loaded with saturated fat.

But the new variety of foods available to affluent Asians, coupled with a less active lifestyle, has a price -- diabetes.

Health experts say Asians are especially at risk for diabetes -- caused by excess weight, fatty foods and lack of exercise -- as the Asian metabolism has over the centuries adapted to a frugal diet and a hard-working lifestyle.

"If you have a poor early life and you then rapidly move into the direction of plenty, you may be more at risk," said Clive Cockram, a professor of medicine at the Chinese University in Hong Kong.

Asians are four to six times more likely to get diabetes than Caucasians, experts say.

Health experts are concerned that diabetes, a chronic and potentially fatal disease, could reach near epidemic proportions across Asia and among affluent Asian communities living abroad. "There is more diabetes than AIDS. It will take over as the main health problem of the developing world soon," said Dr Shirine Boardman, a diabetes expert at Warwick Hospital in England.

In the Western Pacific, a region stretching from Mongolia and Japan in the north to New Zealand in the south, the number of diabetics is expected to hit 100 million in 2025 from 67 million today.