More people in Scotland are developing diabetes as a result of unhealthy lifestyles, an expert has noted.
According to Sir Harry Burns, the country's chief medical officer, tackling underlying risk factors could help to curb the spread of the condition.
This, he said, means more needs to be done to improve people's diets, stop them smoking and get them doing more exercise.
Sir Harry was speaking after the latest Scottish Diabetes survey showed more than 247,000 people in Scotland now have the condition.
This works out to 4.7 per cent of the country's population.
The Westminster government has already identified introducing a consistent way of displaying nutritional information on printed labels for food products as one way of tackling the spread of diabetes.
A consultation on what form this system should take is currently being carried out.
The government wants a single labelling system to be introduced because it believes that different methods are confusing members of the public.
Denny Bros Ltd, 23 August 2012
