Epidemiology of Diabetes and Diabetes-Related Complications in Saudi Arabia

Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is an increasing global health proplem. The most recent data from the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates show a global prevalence of about 422 million people worldwide have diabetes in 2020. Moreover, 1.6 million deaths are directly attributed to D.M. each year. According to the latest information on Feburarey 2020 from the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), the prevelance of DM in Saudi Arabia is about 18.3% where the total cases in adults about 4,275,000. Based on the WHO report, Saudi Arabia ranks the second highest in the prevalence of DM in the Middle East and seventh in the world. According to the Saudi Ministry of Health (MOH), about 0.9â?¯million people were diagnosed with diabetes in 1992, but this incidence increased to 2.5â?¯million people in 2010. This representing approximately 2.7 times rise in the diabetes incidence rates in less than two decades. The most important risk factors for this rapidly increasing in the incident and prevalence of DM in Saudi Arabia are lifestyle patterns and urbanization, dietary pattern, decreasing physical activity levels, obesity and ageing population. The estimated global direct health expenditure on DM in 2019 is $760 billion and is expected to grow to a projected $825 billion by 2030. While in Saudi Arabia, the estimated economic burden of diabetes is expected to be about $4.53 billion a year. According to a Saudi National Diabetes Registry-based study, 10.8% of diabetics have nephropathy. Furthermore, the overall occurrence of diabetic retinopathy is about 19.7%.

Author(s): Thamer ALOhali

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