Global collaboration needed to address diabetes: Houston Mayor

HOUSTON, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- Diabetes is a challenge faced by all and collaborated effort is needed to address the issue, the city Mayor of Houston in south U.S., Sylvester Turner, said Thursday.

Addressing the Cities Changing Diabetes Summit, Turner said diabetes affects all families, all communities. "We are too busy to exercise because we have too much to do and too little time."

Turner said as new solutions were brainstormed and new partnerships were formed, Cities Changing Diabetes offered a platform for global cooperation and collaboration for cities to learn from each other.

Alan Moses, associate vice president and chief medical officer of Novo Nordisk, told Xinhua in an interview that the challenge for China is how to encourage people living in cities to change the way of life with more exercises and less calories intake.

"If they recognize the problem, they can act to put policies in places," he said. "They seem to be small steps but it turns out to be very important."

The second Cities Changing Diabetes Summit kicked off in Houston, Texas, on Thursday. Attended by over 300 guests around the world, the two day summit aims at addressing the global challenges of diabetes and obesity. Chinese cities Shanghai, Tianjin and Xiamen, together with Houston, Mexico city, Johannesburg, Copenhagen, Vancouver and Rome are now participated in this program.

Launched in 2014 by Novo Nordisk, a global healthcare company, Cities Changing Diabetes is a partnership program to fight the urban diabetes challenge. The aim is to map the problem, share solutions and drive concrete action to fight the diabetes challenge in the big cities around the world.