Diabetes AtlasGlobal estimates of the prevalence of diabetes for 2010 and 2030
Introduction
Diabetes mellitus is one of the most common chronic diseases in nearly all countries, and continues to increase in numbers and significance, as changing lifestyles lead to reduced physical activity, and increased obesity. Estimates of the current and future burden of diabetes are important in order to allocate community and health resources, and to emphasise the role of lifestyle, and encourage measures to counteract trends for increasing prevalence.
There have been several previous estimates of the number of persons with diabetes [1], [2], [3], [4]. The World Health Organization (WHO) published estimates for the years 2000 and 2030, using data from 40 countries but extrapolated to the 191 WHO member states [4]. Other estimates have been produced by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) [5], [6]. The estimates produced here update the previous IDF estimates, and include all 216 countries of the United Nations.
Section snippets
Study selection
The Medline database was searched for publications between January 1989 and March 2009, using the following search term “Diabetes Mellitus/epidemiology” MeSH AND “Prevalence” MeSH. Studies were identified that reported on the prevalence of diabetes for at least three adult age-groups from a population-based sample. A number of other avenues were explored in the search for relevant data. Relevant citations from each article were obtained, and diabetes researchers in each major IDF geographical
Results
There were 133 studies identified from 91 countries. The data sources and the results for the 80 most populous countries (those with 2010 adult population of greater than 6.307 million, with a combined 2010 population of 95% of the world adult population) are shown in Table 1, Table 2. There were 47 of the 80 countries that had their own data (85 separate studies). Details of prevalence and case numbers for all 216 countries can be found in the online Appendix.
The highest regional prevalence (
Discussion
These estimates suggest that in 2010 there will be 285 million people worldwide with diabetes, with considerable disparity between populations and regions. The pattern of diabetes varies considerably according to countries’ economic status. For developed countries, the majority with diabetes are aged over 60 years, whereas for developing countries most people with diabetes are of working age, between 40 and 60 years. This difference is likely to still be present in 2030, although less marked,
Conflict of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the members of the IDF Diabetes Atlas Committee (JC Mbanya, D Gan, B Allgot, K Bakker, J Brown, A Ramachandran, M Silink, L Siminerio, G Soltesz, R Williams) for their advice in compiling these estimates. Funding was provided by the IDF.
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