The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal presented the latest findings.
By 2040, the number of persons with type 1 diabetes is predicted to double globally, with adults in low- and middle-income nations accounting for the majority of the new cases.
The model predicts that 8.4 million people will have type 1 diabetes in 2021, with a fifth coming from low- and middle-income nations. The number would have increased by an additional 3.7 million if they had lived. In 2021, it is predicted that one in five people who died from type 1 diabetes were under 25 and had undiagnosed diabetes.
The projection gives estimates for type 1 diabetes rates, related mortality, and life expectancy for 201 countries in 2021. It was created using data that was gathered in the new Type 1 Diabetes Index.
In the coming decades, there is a chance to save millions of lives by improving the standard of care (including ensuring that everyone has access to insulin and other basic supplies) and raising awareness of the symptoms and signs of type 1 diabetes to enable a 100% diagnosis rate across all nations.
“The worldwide prevalence of type 1 diabetes is substantial and growing. Improved surveillance — particularly in adults who make up most of the population living with type 1 diabetes — is essential to enable improvements to care and outcomes,” the authors wrote.
“It is unacceptable that, in 2022, some 35,000 people worldwide are dying undiagnosed within a year of onset of symptoms. There also continues to be a huge disparity in life expectancy for people with type 1 diabetes, hitting those in the poorest countries hardest,” said Chantal Mathieu, MD, , senior vice-president of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes and an endocrinologist based in Belgium.
The model estimates that between 13.5 and 17.4 million individuals would have the illness by 2040, with low- and lower-middle-income nations seeing the biggest proportional increase from 2021. Adults account for the bulk of both incident and prevalent cases of type 1 diabetes, with those 20 years of age and older accounting for 62% of the expected 510,000 new diagnoses globally in 2021.
Parvathy Sukumaran 
