Do lifestyle interventions (improving diet, controlling smoking, improving physical activity) reduce diabetes prevalence in the Chinese population?
Agent-based modeling suggests that improving physical activity may be the most effective lifestyle intervention for reducing diabetes prevalence in China.
China's diabetes epidemic is getting worse. People with diabetes in China usually have a lower body weight and a different lifestyle profile compared to their counterparts in the United States (US). More and more evidence show that certain lifestyles can possibly be spread from person to person, leading some to propose considering social influence when establishing preventive policies. This study developed an innovative agent-based model of the diabetes epidemic for the Chinese population. Based on the risk factors and related complications of diabetes, the model captured individual health progression, quantitatively described the peer influence of certain lifestyles, and projected population health outcomes over a specific time period. We simulated several hypothetical interventions (i.e., improving diet, controlling smoking, improving physical activity) and assessed their impact on diabetes rates. We validated the model by comparing simulation results with external datasets. Our results showed that improving physical activity could result in the most significant decrease in diabetes prevalence compared to improving diet and controlling smoking. Our model can be used to inform policymakers on how the diabetes epidemic develops and help them compare different diabetes prevention programs in practice.
Luo et al. (Tue,) studied this question.