HEALTH — The number of adults living with diabetes worldwide has surpassed 800 million, more than quadrupling since 1990, according to new data released in The Lancet on World Diabetes Day.
The analysis, conducted by the NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC) with support from the World Health Organization (WHO), highlights the scale of the diabetes epidemic and an urgent need for stronger global action to address both rising disease rates and widening treatment gaps, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
“We have seen an alarming rise in diabetes over the past three decades, which reflects the increase in obesity, compounded by the impacts of the marketing of unhealthy food, a lack of physical activity and economic hardship," said WHO Director- General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“To bring the global diabetes epidemic under control, countries must urgently take action. This starts with enacting policies that support healthy diets and physical activity, and, most importantly, health systems that provide prevention, early detection and treatment.”
The study reports that global diabetes prevalence in adults rose from 7% to 14% between 1990 and 2022. LMICs experienced the largest increases, where diabetes rates have soared while treatment access remains persistently low. This trend has led to stark global inequalities: in 2022, almost 450 million adults aged 30 and older – about 59% of all adults with diabetes – remained untreated, marking a 3.5-fold increase in untreated people since 1990. Ninety per cent of these untreated adults are living in LMICs... who.int
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