By The Telegraph (World News) | Created at 2024-11-13 23:35:13 | Updated at 2024-11-22 10:48:24
1 week ago
More than 445 million people living with diabetes across the world have no access to life saving medication, a study in the Lancet has warned.
In the first global analysis of diabetes trends, experts found that while prevalence of the condition has exploded, treatment rates have stagnated – especially in the low and middle income countries where the disease is increasing fastest.
“Our study highlights widening global inequalities in diabetes,” said Prof Majid Ezzati, a professor of Global Environmental Health at Imperial College London and senior author of the paper, which was based on data from 140 million people in 1,000 studies.
“This is especially concerning as people with diabetes tend to be younger in low-income countries,” he said. “In the absence of effective treatment, [they] are at risk of life-long complications – including amputation, heart disease, kidney damage or vision loss. Or in some cases, premature death.”
So called “lifestyle diseases”, or non-communicable diseases, are becoming a bigger and bigger burden across the globe, especially in lower income countries.
Diabetes is no exception: prevalence doubled from seven per cent of the population in 1990, to 14 per cent in 2022, the study found. Given population growth, this equates to a jump of 630 million people in the last 30 years, with roughly 828 million living with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes in 2022.
Rates jumped most significantly among women in Pakistan, from 9 per cent to 30.9 per cent. Only three countries – India, China and America – have more diabetes cases than Pakistan, where doctors say urbanisation, a love of dishes including biryani, and waist-hiding drawstring trousers may have contributed to the surge.
But globally, 59 per cent of adults over 30 with diabetes did not receive any form of treatment in 2022, equal to 445 million people – including 133 million people in India, 78 million in China, 24 million in Pakistan and 18 million in Indonesia.
There are significant global disparities in access to treatment. The study found that although wealthier countries in Europe, South America and East Asia have seen vast improvements, treatment rates are as low as 10 per cent in many low and middle income countries.
“In 2022, only 5-10 per cent of adults with diabetes in some sub-Saharan Africa countries received treatment for diabetes, leaving a huge number at risk of the serious health complications,” said prof Jean Claude Mbanya, a professor of Professor of Medicine, Endocrinology and Diabetes at the University of Yaoundé I in Cameroon.
“Most people with untreated diabetes will not have received a diagnosis, therefore increasing detection of diabetes must be an urgent priority in countries with low levels of treatment,” he said.
Dr Ranjit Mohan Anjana, vice president of the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation in India, added that lower-income countries must also do more to promote health diets and exercise, to prevent cases in the first place.
“[We] need to see more ambitious policies, especially in lower-income regions of the world, that restrict unhealthy foods, make healthy foods affordable and improve opportunities to exercise,” she said.
The study was funded by the UK Medical Research Council, UK Research and Innovation, and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, in collaboration with the World Health Organization.
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