In 2022, an estimated 828 million adults had diabetes worldwide, an increase of 630 million compared to 1990, according to a new study. More than half of diagnosed patients (59%) aged 30 or older did not receive treatment — 3.5 times the number in 1990. The researchers caution that the burden of diabetes and untreated diabetes is increasingly borne by low-income and middle-income countries, where treatment did not increase sufficiently at pace with surging diabetes prevalence.
The study published in The Lancet uses data from 1,108 studies, with 141 million participants over 18 from 175 countries. These studies included measurements of fasting glucose and glycated hemoglobin levels and treatment information.