Diabetes rates hold steady in latest U.S. report, rising around the world
In the U.S., 11.3% of adults have diagnosed diabetes and 4.5% have undiagnosed diabetes, a CDC report found. A global analysis found that diabetes rates are rising fastest in low- and middle-income countries in southeast Asia, south Asia, the Middle East and north Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
Key trends about the prevalence of diabetes emerged from two studies published recently.
A November data brief from the National Center for Health Statistics presented the prevalence of diabetes (excluding gestational diabetes) in U.S. adults from August 2021 through August 2023. Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey were used for analysis.
Among the findings were the following:
- The prevalence of total diabetes was 15.8%, with rates of 11.3% for diagnosed diabetes and 4.5% for undiagnosed disease in U.S. adults.
- Total and diagnosed diabetes prevalence was higher in men (18.0% and 12.9%, respectively) than in women (13.7% and 9.7%, respectively), but the difference in rates of undiagnosed diabetes between men and women was not significant.
- Total, diagnosed, and undiagnosed diabetes prevalence increased with age and weight and decreased with increasing educational attainment. Rates of diabetes decreased from 19.6% in adults with a high school degree, GED, or less to 17.2% in those with some college education and 10.7% in adults with a bachelor's degree or more.
- Age-adjusted prevalence of diabetes increased significantly since the time period of 1999-2000 (from 9.7% to 14.3% in this report), but the change from 2017–2020 to the current period was not significant (14.8% to 14.3%).
Another recent study, published by The Lancet on Nov. 23, reported on global diabetes prevalence from 1990 through 2022 using a meta-analysis of 1,108 population-representative studies with 141 million participants. In 2022, an estimated 828 million (95% credible interval [CrI], 757 to 908 million) adults had diabetes, an increase of 630 million (95% CrI, 554 to 713 million) from 1990, the study found. From 1990 to 2022, the age-standardized prevalence of diabetes increased in 131 countries for women and in 155 countries for men.
The lowest prevalence in the world in 2022 was in western Europe and east Africa for both sexes and in Japan and Canada for women. The highest prevalence in the world in 2022 was in countries in Polynesia and Micronesia and some countries in the Caribbean and the Middle East and north Africa, as well as Pakistan and Malaysia. The largest increases were in low-income and middle-income countries in southeast Asia, south Asia, the Middle East and north Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
“The burden of diabetes and untreated diabetes is increasingly borne by low-income and middle-income countries,” the study authors concluded. “The expansion of health insurance and primary health care should be accompanied with diabetes programmes that realign and resource health services to enhance the early detection and effective treatment of diabetes.”