(Text: Tarah Wang)

HONG KONG, March 16, 2016 - Professor Venkat Narayan, director of Emory Global Diabetes Research Center, gave a briefing about the pandemic of the modern era— Type 2 diabetes, and in particular, the cases amongst the Asian race. Despite the prevalent notion that this disease is commonly found in high-income-earning countries with high obesity rates, recent findings show that relatively ‘thin’ races such as Asians are at equally high risk of getting type 2 diabetes. In fact, gene studies proved that genes of obesity and type 2 diabetes do not overlap much- which means the two are not necessarily correlated. He further elaborated on possible historical, evolutional, and scientific reasons why Asians especially the Chinese and the Indians have become more susceptible to such disease. Diabetes has become a critical global issue that needs to be tackled in near future.  (53 min., 49 sec.)