RESEARCH ARTICLE p

Background for subjects ≥20 years old [2,3]. The prevalence of predia-Ji et al. BMC Public Health 2013, 13:602 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/13/602a strong correlation between mean glycated hemoglobinHospital, No. 11 Xizhimen Nandajie, Beijing 100044, ChinaFull list of author information is available at the end of the articleAccording to a 1994 study, the incidence of type 1 dia-betes mellitus (T1DM), also known as insulin-dependent diabetes or childhood diabetes, in Shanghai, China is 0.72 per 100,000 residents, making it among the lowest in the world [1]. At this incidence rate, the 13,000 T1DM cases diagnosed annually in the United States would drop to <500 new cases per year [1]. The prevalence of both prediabetes and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in Chinese adults, however, is much higher, with a recent national survey showing a 2008 prevalence rate of 9.7% betes, defined by either impaired fasting glucose or impaired glucose tolerance, is estimated to be 15.5 % in Chinese adults, which would make the total adult popula-tion with prediabetes in China about 148.2 million people (76.1 million men and 72.1 million women) [2]. T2DM is estimated to affect 9.7 % of the Chinese population (10.6% of men and 8.8 % of women), which would make 92.4 mil-lion adults in China who have diabetes (50.2 million men and 42.2 million women) [2]. Several large, well-known studies, including the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS), have dem-onstrated the importance of glycemic control among pa-tients with T2DM [4-6]. Such research has shown there i