The percentage of adults with diabetes worldwide has doubled over the past three decades, with the largest increases in developing countries, a study said Wednesday.
According to new analysis by The Lancet journal, chronic health conditions will affect about 14 percent of all adults worldwide in 2022, compared to seven percent in 1990.
Taking into account the growing global population, the team of researchers estimated that more than 800 million people now suffer from diabetes, compared to less than 200 million in 1990.
These figures include both main types of diabetes. Type 1 affects patients from an early age and is more difficult to treat because it is caused by insulin deficiency.
Type 2 mainly affects middle-aged or older people who lose their sensitivity to insulin.
Behind the global numbers, national figures varied widely.
The study said diabetes rates remained the same or even fell in some wealthy countries like Japan, Canada, or Western European countries like France and Denmark.
“The burden of diabetes and untreated diabetes is increasingly borne by low-income and middle-income countries,” it says.
For example, almost a third of women in Pakistan now suffer from diabetes, compared to less than a tenth in 1990.
The researchers emphasized that obesity is an “important driver” of type 2 diabetes – as is unhealthy diet.
The gap between how diabetes is treated in rich and poor countries is also widening.
Researchers estimate that three out of five people with diabetes over the age of 30 – 445 million adults – will not receive diabetes treatment in 2022.
India alone accounted for about a third of that number.
In sub-Saharan Africa, only five to 10 percent of adults with diabetes will receive treatment in 2022.
Some developing countries, like Mexico, are doing well in treating their populations, he said — but overall the global gap is widening.
“This is particularly worrying because people with diabetes in low-income countries tend to live younger lives and, in the absence of effective treatment, remain at risk of life-long complications,” said senior study author Majid Ezzati, of Imperial College London.
Those complications include “amputation, heart disease, kidney damage or vision loss — or in some cases, premature death,” he said in a statement.
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