More Diabetes Patients Suffering Other Diseases: Malaysian Registry

According to the National Diabetes Registry Report, 80.4% and 74.3% of adult diabetes patients in Malaysia had hypertension and dyslipidemia respectively in 2019.

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 5 — The prevalence of other conditions among adults with Type 2 diabetes in Malaysia has been increasing over the past six years, according to the National Diabetes Registry (NDR) Report 2013-2019.

According to the report by the Ministry of Health’s disease control division, about eight of 10 and seven of 10 diabetic patients suffered from hypertension and dyslipidemia respectively in 2019.

Prevalence of high blood pressure among diabetic patients rose from 72.9 per cent in 2013 to 80.4 per cent in 2019. Similarly, prevalence of dyslipidemia (unhealthy levels of fat in the blood) among diabetic patients increased from 59.8 per cent in 2013 to 74.3 per cent in 2019.

In 2019, retinopathy (damage to the retina of the eyes) among diabetes patients was at 7.2 per cent in 2013, while the year 2019 saw a rise in that disease among diabetic patients to 10.6 per cent.

Prevalence of nephropathy (kidney damage that results from diabetes) among people with diabetes increased from 8.8 per cent in 2013 to 14.6 per cent in 2019.

The World Health Organization stated that diabetes has caused 2.6 per cent of global blindness and the disease is one of the key factors that causes kidney failure.

The prevalence of erectile dysfunction among men with diabetes in Malaysia increased steadily from 8.3 per cent in 2013 to 14.5 per cent in 2019.

In America, almost 98 per cent of diabetic patients have at least one other health condition and nearly 90 per cent have two other diseases. The risk of getting other diseases increases with age among diabetic patients there.

In Malaysia, diabetic patients with amputations just increased by 0.1 percentage points — from 0.6 per cent in 2013 to 0.7 per cent in 2019.

The proportion of patients with ischaemic heart disease (lack of blood supply to heart) has increased slightly from 5.4 per cent in 2013 to 5.9 per cent in 2019.

The prevalence of cerebrovascular disease among diabetic patients similarly increased slightly from 1.3 per cent in 2013 to 1.8 per cent in 2019.

NDR stated that 20 per cent of adult Malaysians have diabetes. Of them, only 57 per cent of known diabetes patients who have claimed to receive treatment at public primary care health facilities are registered in the NDR.

According to the National Health Morbidity Survey in 2019, out of a total of 1,999,450 known diabetes patients, 74.3 per cent or 1,485,591 patients, seek care at MOH primary care facilities

But the NDR records in 2019 shows that only 849,691 active diabetes patients have registered with the registry.

A total of 25.7 per cent of the diabetic patients receive treatment in public hospitals and private health facilities. They also take complementary and alternative medicines as the primary mode of treatment, including self-medication.

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