New Delhi: India was home to 212 million people with diabetes in 2022, the highest in the world, followed by China with 148 million diabetics. The US had 42 million adults with diabetes in 2022, a new study published in The Lancet revealed.
According to the study, the total number of adults living with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes in the world has surpassed 800 million – over four times the total number in 1990.
“Of the 828 million adults with diabetes in 2022, over a quarter (212 million) lived in India with another 148 million in China, followed by the USA (42 million), Pakistan (36 million), Indonesia (25 million) and Brazil (22 million), according to findings from a global analysis published in The Lancet.
The diabetes rate amongst women in India rose from 11.9% in 1990 to 23.7% in 2022, one of the largest increases across other countries. Amongst men, the diabetes rate rose to 11.3% in 1990 to 21.4% in 2022.
India’s Dr V Mohan, co-author of the study, said there is no increase in numbers but the use of criteria to calculate the numbers has readjusted in the jacked up numbers.
“With the use of fasting glucose and HB1C you get inflated figures. India therefore becomes the country with the largest number of people with diabetes much ahead of China, which is not a surprise because India’s population has overtaken China. Having more people with diabetes is not a problem, it’s only the complications due to diabetes that we have to worry about,” he said.
The researchers used data from over 140 million people aged 18 years or older from more than 1,000 studies in populations of different countries.
As per the Lancet, from 1990 to 2022, global diabetes rates doubled in both men (6.8% in 1990 to 14.3% in 2022) and women (6.9% to 13.9%). With the additional impact of population growth and ageing, this equates to an estimated 828 million adults with diabetes in 2022, an increase of approximately 630 million people from 1990, when roughly 198 million adults were estimated to have the disease.
The changes in diabetes rate from 1990 to 2022 varied drastically across different countries with mostly LMICs experiencing the largest increases. Some higher-income countries, like Japan, Canada and some countries in Western Europe (France, Spain and Denmark) saw no change or even a small decrease in diabetes rate over the last three decades.
The countries with the lowest rates of diabetes in 2022 were in Western Europe and East Africa for both sexes, and in Japan and Canada for women. For example, diabetes rates in 2022 were as low as 2-4% for women in France, Denmark, Spain, Switzerland, and Sweden, and 3-5% for men in Denmark, France, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Spain, and Rwanda.
By contrast, countries with the highest rates, where 25% or more of the population had diabetes for both men and women, were the Pacific Island nations and those located in the Caribbean and the Middle East and North Africa, as well as Pakistan and Malaysia.
Among high-income industrialised nations, diabetes rates in 2022 were highest in the USA (11.4% amongst women and 13.6% in men), it said. An important driver of the rise in type 2 diabetes rates, and its variation across countries, is obesity and poor diets.
“Our findings highlight the need to see more ambitious policies, especially in lower-income regions of the world, that restrict unhealthy foods, make healthy foods affordable and improve opportunities to exercise through measures such as subsidies for healthy foods and free healthy school meals as well as promoting safe places for walking and exercising including free entrance to public parks and fitness centres,” said Dr Ranjit Mohan Anjana, Madras Diabetes Research Foundation, India.
The study also found that three out of five (59%) of adults aged 30 years and older with diabetes, a total of 445 million, were not receiving medication for diabetes in 2022, three and half times the number in 1990 (129 million). In 2022, almost one third (133 million, 30%) of the 445 million adults aged 30 years or older with untreated diabetes lived in India, more than 50% greater than the next largest number, which was in China (78 million) because treatment coverage was higher in China (45% for women and 41% for men) than in India (28% for women and 29% for men).
Similarly, Pakistan (24 million) and Indonesia (18 million), the next two countries with the largest number of untreated diabetes, surpassed the USA (13 million), which had higher treatment coverage (65% for women and 67% for men).
The authors acknowledge some limitations to their study including that most survey data did not separate type 1 and type 2 diabetes in adults.
