KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 6 — Selangor has the highest number of diabetes patients in the country, followed by Johor, Perak, Sarawak, and Kedah, according to the National Diabetes Registry Report 2013-2019.
Selangor has registered 232,054 diabetes patients, or 14.37 per cent out of 1,614,363 registered patients nationwide, followed by Johor with 228,166 patients (14.13 per cent), and Perak’s 175,762 patients (10.89 per cent).
In 2019, a total of 1,614,363 patients have enrolled in the registry, including 897,421 active diabetes patients.
According to the National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS) 2019 by the Ministry of Health (MOH), the prevalence rate of diabetes in adults has increased in Malaysia from 13.4 per cent in 2015 to 18.3 per cent in 2019, with diabetes defined as having sugar levels 7.0 mmol/L or above.
An estimated 3.9 million adults in Malaysia aged 18 and above had diabetes as of last year, higher than 3.5 million in 2015. The NHMS 2019 survey found that 49 per cent of people with diabetes had never been examined or diagnosed with the chronic disease.
Most registered diabetic patients with the NDR were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. At the end of 2019, only 6.2 per cent of patients were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, and 0.09 per cent were diagnosed with other forms of diabetes.
NDR stated that 57.1 per cent of registered diabetic patients were women and 42.9 per cent comprised men in Malaysia.
The European Society of Cardiology stated that diabetes is the leading cause of death globally with 30 per cent loss of life expectancy.
From the total 1,614,363 registered diabetic patients in the country, 59.15 per cent of patients consist of Malays, while 19.62 per cent are Chinese, followed by Indians at 13.17 per cent, and other ethnicities at 8.05 per cent.
According to the NDR, most diabetes patients were diagnosed between the age of 50 and 54, or 17.2 per cent, followed by 16.6 per cent of people between the ages of 55 and 59.
Almost half, or 47.87 patients with diabetes, ranged from the age of 45 to 59 in the country.
The median age of a diabetic patient in Malaysia is 53.
