WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - According to a recent study, the number of people suffering from diabetes has increased to 14 percent from 7 percent between 1990 to 2022 with the major portion of cases reported in poorer countries.
The global analysis, published in The Lancet, found that fourteen percent of the world's population, or over 800 million people, are diabetes patients.
The study analyzed data of more than 140 million people aged 18 or older from more than 1,000 studies conducted worldwide. It is the first global calculation of diabetes case numbers and treatment rates, involving all countries.
'Our study highlights widening global inequalities in diabetes, with treatment rates stagnating in many low and middle-income countries where numbers of adults with diabetes are drastically increasing,' Senior author Prof Majid Ezzati, of Imperial College London, said.
'This is especially concerning as people with diabetes tend to be younger in low-income countries and, in the absence of effective treatment, are at risk of life-long complications - including amputation, heart disease, kidney damage or vision loss - or in some cases, premature death.'
Of the number of adults with diabetes in 2022, 212 million people lived in India, followed by 148 million in China, 42 million in the U.S., and 36 million in Pakistan.
Wealthy countries, such as Japan, Canada, France, Spain and Denmark reported no change or slight decline in the number of diabetes patients.
The diabetes rate was low among women in France, Denmark, Spain, Switzerland and Sweden, and low among men in in Denmark, France, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Spain and Rwanda.
'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,'the WHO director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said.
'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.'
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