It’s published
Almost half of people with diabetes around the world don’t know they have chronic health conditions, new analysis found.
The gap is despite the increasing number of diabetes diagnosis since the turn of the century. Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology Journal.
The proportion of patients receiving diabetes treatment or having optimal blood glucose levels is also low worldwide, the study found.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 830 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes. It is expected to rise to 1.3 billion by 2050, the researchers said.
They analyzed health data from 204 countries and regions in 2023 and found that 44.2% of diabetics over the age of 15 were unaware of the condition around the world.
Central Sub-Saharan Africa had the biggest gap, with fewer than 20% of people with diabetes aware of their condition.
“If nearly half of people with diabetes don’t know that there are serious, potentially deadly health conditions, it can easily become a quiet epidemic,” said Lauryn Stafford, one of the study’s authors and a researcher at the US-based Institute for Health Indicators and Assessment (IHME), in a statement.
However, even patients with a diagnosis can have difficulty accessing appropriate treatment. Globally, 8.6% of diagnosed patients were not treated for diabetes, a study found. 58.4% of people receiving treatment had poor blood glucose control.
Overall, nearly four out of five people with diabetes worldwide had no control over their blood sugar levels.
There were big gaps in each region. People are most likely to be diagnosed in high-income regions in North America and most likely to be treated in high-income regions in the Asia-Pacific region.
People receiving treatment in the southern Latin America are most likely to have good blood sugar levels.
Diabetes that remain untreated can cause life-threatening complications, such as diabetic ketosidosis. This is when insulin deficiency causes ketones or acids to accumulate in the blood.
Untreated diabetes can also affect the heart, kidneys, blood vessels, eyes and nerves. Early diagnosis and blood pressure management can help people avoid these issues.
Symptoms of diabetes include blurred vision, fatigue, losing weight without challenge, feeling thirsty, and urinating frequently. The symptoms are mild and it could take years for people to notice them, who said.
Symptoms usually appear faster in people with type 1 diabetes, but this is less common and should be treated with insulin.
Researchers called for more effort to detect, treat and manage diabetes around the world.
“Targeted interventions to strengthen the healthcare system’s ability to effectively diagnose and manage diabetes can lead to better health outcomes and reduce the burden of this growing disease,” they said.