Yes, diabetes is a noncommunicable disease (NCD). The World Health Organization classifies it as one of the four major NCDs alongside heart disease, cancer, and chronic lung disease. Together, these four disease categories account for 74% of all deaths worldwide. Diabetes qualifies as noncommunicable because it cannot be spread from person to person through infection, contact, or any other route. It develops from a combination of genetic predisposition, immune system malfunction, or lifestyle factors.
What Makes a Disease Noncommunicable
A noncommunicable disease is any chronic condition that isn’t caused by an infectious agent and can’t be transmitted between people. You can’t “catch” diabetes the way you catch the flu or a bacterial infection. Instead, diabetes develops because of processes happening inside the body: the immune system attacking insulin-producing cells, the body becoming resistant to insulin, or genetic mutations affecting how the pancreas works. These internal mechanisms are the defining line between communicable and noncommunicable diseases.
Why Every Form of Diabetes Is Noncommunicable
Diabetes isn’t a single disease. It’s a group of related conditions that all lead to high blood sugar, but through different pathways. Every form falls under the NCD umbrella.
Type 1 diabetes accounts for 5 to 10% of all diabetes cases. It’s an autoimmune condition where the body’s own immune cells destroy the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. This typically develops in children, teens, or young adults, and both genetic and environmental factors influence whether the autoimmune process begins. It has no connection to infection or contagion.
Type 2 diabetes makes up 90 to 95% of cases. It develops when the body becomes resistant to insulin and the pancreas gradually loses its ability to compensate. Unlike type 1, there’s no autoimmune destruction involved. The causes are a mix of genetic predisposition and environmental influences like diet, physical activity levels, and body weight. It typically appears in adults, though rates in younger people are rising.
Gestational diabetes develops during pregnancy and usually resolves after delivery. However, it carries long-term consequences. Women who have had gestational diabetes face roughly a sevenfold increase in risk for developing type 2 diabetes later in life. One population study found that 18.9% of women with a history of gestational diabetes developed type 2 within nine years, compared to just 2% of women without that history.
Rarer forms exist as well. MODY (maturity-onset diabetes of the young) results from specific gene mutations affecting pancreatic function. Secondary diabetes can develop from other conditions like chronic pancreatitis or pancreatic cancer, or as a side effect of certain medications like corticosteroids. None of these involve transmission from one person to another.
Risk Factors: What You Can and Can’t Change
Because diabetes is noncommunicable, its risk factors fall into two categories: those you’re born with and those tied to how you live.
Non-modifiable risk factors include family history, age, ethnicity, and prior gestational diabetes. African American, Hispanic, Latino, American Indian, Alaska Native, and some Pacific Islander and Asian American populations face higher risk for type 2 diabetes. For type 1, having a parent or sibling with the condition increases risk, and it most commonly appears in younger people.
Modifiable risk factors for type 2 diabetes include carrying excess weight, being physically active fewer than three times a week, and dietary patterns. These are the factors that make diabetes partially preventable, which is a hallmark of many NCDs. The CDC’s National Diabetes Prevention Program has shown that a structured lifestyle change program focusing on healthy eating and physical activity can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes by more than 50% in people at high risk.
The Global Scale of Diabetes as an NCD
The numbers reflect just how significant diabetes is within the broader NCD crisis. The number of people living with diabetes worldwide rose from 200 million in 1990 to 830 million in 2022. That means 14% of adults aged 18 and older were living with diabetes in 2022, double the 7% rate in 1990.
In 2021, diabetes directly caused 1.6 million deaths. Nearly half of those deaths occurred before age 70. Beyond the direct toll, diabetes contributed to an additional 530,000 kidney disease deaths and caused around 11% of cardiovascular deaths globally.
The economic weight is equally staggering. A cost-of-illness study estimated the global cost of diabetes at $1.31 trillion in 2015, equivalent to 1.8% of world GDP. About 35% of that burden came from indirect costs like lost productivity and premature death rather than direct medical spending.
How Diabetes Complications Are Managed
Like other NCDs, diabetes requires ongoing management rather than a one-time cure. The goal is to keep blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol within target ranges to prevent the complications that cause most diabetes-related disability and death.
The payoff of consistent management is well documented. Effective blood sugar control reduces the risk of eye disease, kidney disease, and nerve damage by 40%. Managing blood pressure lowers the risk of heart disease and stroke by 33 to 50%. Improved cholesterol levels can cut cardiovascular complications by 20 to 50%. Regular eye screening and timely treatment can prevent up to 90% of diabetes-related blindness, and proper foot care and exams could prevent up to 85% of diabetes-related amputations.
The WHO Global Diabetes Compact has set targets for 2030 that reflect these priorities: 80% of people with diabetes diagnosed, 80% of those diagnosed with good blood sugar control, 80% with good blood pressure control, and 100% of people with type 1 diabetes having access to affordable insulin and blood glucose monitoring. These targets exist precisely because diabetes, as a chronic NCD, requires sustained health system engagement rather than acute treatment and recovery.