About 11.1% of the world’s adult population has diabetes. That translates to roughly 589 million people aged 20 to 79, or one in every nine adults on the planet, according to the 2025 edition of the International Diabetes Federation’s Diabetes Atlas. The number has been climbing steadily for decades, and projections suggest it will reach 783 million adults (12.2%) by 2045.
How the Number Breaks Down by Type
Type 2 diabetes accounts for about 96% of all cases worldwide. It develops when the body gradually loses the ability to use insulin effectively, typically in adulthood, and is closely tied to weight, physical activity, and diet. Type 1 diabetes, where the immune system destroys the cells that produce insulin, makes up most of the remaining cases and usually appears in childhood or adolescence. A smaller share includes gestational diabetes (during pregnancy) and rarer genetic forms.
Regions With the Highest Rates
Diabetes is not evenly distributed across the globe. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has the highest prevalence of any world region at 17.6%, well above the global average of 11.1%. Among older adults in MENA, the rate reaches 32.3%, meaning roughly one in three people over 60 in that region is living with diabetes. The region also sees the highest percentage of diabetes-related deaths in working-age adults: 21.6% of those deaths occur in people under 60.
Low- and middle-income countries bear a disproportionate share of the global burden. Nearly 90% of all people with diabetes live in these countries, where access to insulin, blood sugar monitoring, and routine medical care is often limited. This creates a cycle where the disease is both more common and more dangerous.
Nearly Half of Cases Are Undiagnosed
One of the most striking figures in global diabetes data is the gap between how many people have the disease and how many know it. An estimated 43% of adults with diabetes, roughly 252 million people, have not been diagnosed. Many will not find out until they develop complications like vision loss, kidney damage, or cardiovascular disease. In the MENA region, about one in three adults with diabetes remains undiagnosed.
This diagnostic gap is widest in countries with fewer healthcare resources. Without routine screening, type 2 diabetes can quietly progress for years. Blood sugar levels high enough to cause organ damage often produce no obvious symptoms in the early stages, which is why screening matters even for people who feel fine.
Urban vs. Rural Differences
Where you live also shapes your risk. Research in countries like Bangladesh illustrates a pattern seen globally: type 2 diabetes prevalence was 10.8% in urban areas compared to 7.4% in rural areas. Prediabetes followed a similar split, affecting 31.4% of urban residents versus 27% of rural residents. Urban environments tend to encourage more sedentary lifestyles and greater access to processed food, both of which drive insulin resistance over time. As urbanization accelerates across Asia and Africa, these trends are expected to push global numbers higher.
The Human and Economic Cost
Diabetes was the direct cause of 1.6 million deaths in 2021. Nearly half of those deaths (47%) occurred in people under 70, meaning the disease is cutting lives short well before old age. That figure also likely undercounts the true toll, since diabetes significantly raises the risk of heart attack, stroke, and kidney failure, deaths that are often attributed to those conditions rather than to the underlying diabetes.
The financial burden is enormous. Diabetes-related healthcare accounts for 12% of total global health spending. That includes insulin, medications, hospitalizations for complications, dialysis for kidney failure, and long-term management. In many low-income countries, a month’s supply of insulin can consume a large share of a household’s income, forcing impossible tradeoffs between treatment and basic needs.
Why the Numbers Keep Rising
Several forces are converging to push diabetes prevalence upward. Global obesity rates have roughly tripled since 1975, and excess body fat is the single strongest modifiable risk factor for type 2 diabetes. Populations are also aging. Because the risk of type 2 diabetes increases with age, countries with growing elderly populations see higher overall rates almost automatically. Urbanization compounds both of these factors by changing how people eat and move.
If current trends hold, the global prevalence among adults is projected to climb from 11.1% today to 12.2% by 2045, adding nearly 200 million more cases. Much of that growth will concentrate in regions that already struggle to provide adequate care, particularly sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia. The trajectory is not locked in, since population-level changes in diet and physical activity can bend the curve, but no country has yet reversed its diabetes trend at a national scale.