Burden of Diabetes, Untreated Diabetes Increased From 1990 to 2022

FRIDAY, Nov. 15, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- The global burden of diabetes and untreated diabetes increased from 1990 to 2022, according to a study published online Nov. 13 in The Lancet.

Bin Zhou, Ph.D., from Imperial College London, and colleagues used data from 1,108 population-representative studies with 141 million participants aged 18 years and older to examine trends in diabetes prevalence and treatment from 1990 to 2022.

The researchers found that an estimated 828 million adults had diabetes in 2022, representing an increase of 630 million from 1990. The age-standardized prevalence of diabetes increased from 1990 to 2022 in 131 and 155 countries for women and men, respectively, with a posterior probability of more than 0.80. Low-income and middle-income countries in Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean had the largest increases. In 2022, 445 million adults (59 percent) aged 30 years or older with diabetes did not receive treatment, a 3.5-fold increase from 1990. Diabetes treatment coverage increased from 1990 to 2018 in 118 and 98 countries for women and men, respectively, with a posterior probability of more than 0.80. Some countries from Central and Western Europe and Latin America (Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Costa Rica), Canada, South Korea, Russia, Seychelles, and Jordan had the largest improvement in treatment, while most countries in sub-Saharan Africa; the Caribbean; Pacific island nations; and South, Southeast, and Central Asia had no increase in treatment coverage.

"The current variations in treatment were largely related to the extent of diabetes underdiagnosis, which means that improving case detection is a prerequisite to increasing treatment coverage," the authors write.

Several authors disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

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