The number of diabetics is rising in China's rural areas because of poor diet, an increasing lack of exercise and poor health-maintenance information, a report said November 17.

In recent years, the number of people with diabetes in rural areas has outgrown the suburban diabetic population, the English newspaper China Daily reported.

It is estimated that about 3.3 percent of the Chinese population has diabetes, and the number is rising by 0.1 percent each year.

The rural diabetes rate is caused by a tendency of non- scientific eating habit as their incomes increase, experts said.

People in rural areas should get more exercise and eat less sugar and fatty meats to defend themselves against the disease.

And those who have a family story of the disease should have examines to detect it as soon as possible, the experts noted.

However, to give people regular medical checkups, rural China needs better medical equipment and better trained health-care workers, the paper said.