Global prevalence and future of diabetes mellitus

This chapter addresses the prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM) in various countries according to geographic regions, as designated in an atlas publishedby the International Diabetes Federation in 2011. These include countries and territories in Europe, Africa, Middle East, North Africa, North America and Caribbean islands, South and Central America, South-East Asia and the Western Pacific Islands. Actual prevalence of DM (cases per 100 population) is expressed not only specifically for each individual country (national value) but more importantly, corrected by the population, age structure (comparative value) and also as an estimate of DM trend in 2030. It can be seen that in all countries (Tables 1-5) the prevalence of DM is on rise. A substantial contributing factor to the rise is the steady increase in body weight and obesity in many parts of the world. Economic stability and technological progress promote obesity in European countries, the USA and in oil producing countries such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Also environmental factors, social trends toward higher energy intake and reduced energy expenditure also have a decisive role to play in the pathogenesis of overweight and DM.