Africa faces diabetes crisis, study finds

A study in the medical journal The Lancet published in March 2025 says that by 2045, about 12% of sub-Saharan Africans could have diabetes.
Researchers warn that type 2
diabetes could affect millions more people in the coming decades after a study
published this month revealed the disease is rising far faster among people in
sub-Saharan Africa than previously thought.
Take 51-year-old security guard Sibusiso Sithole, for
example. Being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes came as a shock, he said, because
he walked six miles to and from work every day and never thought his weight was
a problem.
Since his diagnosis 13 years ago, Sithole has been on a
rigorous treatment for diabetes and high blood pressure.
Diabetes is a condition in which the body struggles to turn
food into energy due to insufficient insulin. Without insulin, sugar stays in
the blood instead of entering cells, leading to high blood-sugar levels.
Long-term complications include heart disease, kidney failure, blindness and
amputations.
The International Diabetes Federation estimated in 2021 that
24 million adults in sub-Saharan Africa were living with the condition.
Researchers had projected that by 2045, about 6% of sub-Saharan Africans — over
50 million — would have diabetes.
The new study, published this month in the medical journal The Lancet, suggested the actual percentage
could be nearly double that.
By tracking more than 10,000 participants in South Africa,
Kenya, Ghana and Burkina Faso over seven years, researchers found that poor
eating habits, lack of health care access, obesity and physical inactivity are
key drivers of diabetes in Africa.
Dr. Raylton Chikwati, a study co-author from the University
of Witwatersrand in South Africa, said another risk factor is living in or
moving to the outskirts of cities, or “peri-urban areas.”
“Access to health care, you know, in the rural areas is a bit
less than in the urban areas,” Chikwati said, adding that increased use of
processed foods in the peri-urban areas was a problem.
Palwende Boua, a research associate at the Clinical Research
Unit of Nanoro in Burkina Faso, said long-term studies are rare in Africa but
essential to understanding diseases.
“Being able to have a repeated measure and following up
[with] the same people ... is providing much more information and much valuable
information,” Boua said, “rather than having to see people once and trying to
understand a phenomenon.”
Boua is preparing a policy brief for Burkina Faso’s
government to assist in the fight against diabetes.
For Sithole, managing his diabetes has been a long journey.
But with treatment and lifestyle changes, he has regained control over his
health.
“What I can tell people is that they must go and check —
check the way they eat — because that time I was having too much weight in my
body,” he said. “I was wearing size 40 that time. Now I'm wearing size 34.”
Experts stressed that Africans should get their blood-sugar
level tested and seek treatment when diabetes is diagnosed.
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