Abstract:
There are 40 million people with diabetes in China, and the projected increase in
the rates of obesity and premature cardiovascular disease is alarming. Most patients
prefer to combine traditional Chinese medicine with Western medicine, but there is
little or no information about the risks and benefits of this approach. Traditional
Chinese medicine identifies three patterns of 'depletion-thirst' syndrome and therapy
is aimed at reversing the deficiency in yin and qi, using a combination of products
tailored to the symptoms and clinical features of individual patients. In Western
medicine a number of new oral and injectable antidiabetic therapies are likely to
enter routine clinical practice over the next 5 years, for example long-acting GLP-l
analogues, DPP-IV inhibitors and dual PPAR-u, PPAR-y agonists. To make best use of
these agents in China and to promote diabetes education and health service development,
there is a need for improved communication and collaboration between
universities and hospitals both inside and outside China; and Western pharmacologists
and clinicians need a better understanding of traditional Chinese medicine. There
are several examples of institutional cooperation that should further diabetes research
in China, for example the Beijing Chaoyang Diabetes Hospital linked with Imperial
College, London, and the University of Nottingham, which has a new campus in
Ningbo, south of Shanghai.
