Mads Ovlisen, chief executive of the world's leading diabetes care company Novo Nordisk, said changing diets and more sedentary lifestyles meant there would be up to 220 million diabetes sufferers by the year 2015.

Mr Ovlisen said this would put a strain on the financial and medical resources of many Asian governments.

He said: "If we don't get something done with this, these countries will have a huge problem - a social problem in terms of cost, but also a personal problem in terms of people who will live with a disease that they cannot properly control.

"It really has a very, very major societal impact."

Sugar disorder

Diabetes is a disorder which effects the body's abililty to absorb sugar in the blood.

Starved of the sugar product glucose, cells can burn up fat or protein instead, causing weight loss and weakened muscles. If the illness is not treated, the diabetic can sink into a coma and eventually die.

There are two types of diabetes, type one and type two.

Those with type one, most often seen in children and young people, cannot produce the hormone insulin needed to absorb sugar and must inject themselves with insulin every day.

Those with type two produce insulin but their cells are unable to absorb sugar from the blood. Some cases of type two diabetes can be managed with exercise and diet.

About two per cent of the world's population suffers from one of the two forms of diabetes, with about 3.5 million having type one and 110 million to 115 million with type two.

Lifestyle link

Bombay: India faces a huge rise in diabetes

Zaiton Dato Jamaluddin, head of Novo Nordisk's pharmaceutical operations in Malaysia, said the incidence of type two diabetes was rising in Asia as life styles and diets changed.

"You will see an explosion, or at least this is the belief of the authorities," she said.

Awareness of diabetes was on the rise in Asia, and the screening process had improved, she said.

"For every case that is diagnosed, probably one or two are undiagnosed," she said.

Mr Ovlisen said Novo Nordisk was working with governments and diabetes associations to increase the awareness of diabetes.