New modelling shows that apart from the obvious health threat, diabetes is also a major long-term economic threat, with disability, treatment costs and lost productivity projected to reshape global output for decades, reports News-Medical.net
The study, published in Nature Communications, indicates a potential reduction of more than $5trn international dollars in economic output across 190 countries and territories between 2021 and 2050. The researchers observed country-level variations. However, a consistent global pattern emerged: diabetes-related disability and morbidity accounted for the majority of economic losses.
The findings underscore the need to improve diabetes management to improve quality of life and reduce pressure on healthcare systems, they said.
Economic burden background
Diabetes prevalence is continuing to rise globally thanks to nutritional insecurity, physical inactivity, air pollution, population ageing, and related lifestyle and environmental risk factors.
The well-established clinical consequences include cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, blindness, limb loss, disability and early death. The long-term economic impact, however, remains unclear.
Previous studies focused on diabetes-related medical expenses in individual countries, leaving gaps in overall economic evaluations of the condition across the globe. Improved understanding of the potential economic burden could inform policy-making and help guide prevention programmes, tailored by country and region to improve overall health.
Macro-economic diabetes modelling study design
For the present study, the researchers, led by Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, estimated the long-term economic consequences of diabetes across 190 countries and territories between 2021 and 2050. The study included two scenarios: a status quo and a counterfactual. The status quo scenario represented current diabetes trends without additional interventions.
The counterfactual scenario assumed that diabetes could be eliminated completely at no additional cost.
The cumulative difference in the projected gross domestic product (GDP) between the two scenarios over the study period indicated the macro-economic burden.
The model included estimates of effective labour supply and physical capital accumulation. These estimates enabled researchers to account for changes in the workforce, productivity, treatment expenditures, savings, and demographic patterns. Unlike conventional cost-of-illness methods, the model accounted for productivity differences by socio-demographic characteristics, including education and work experience.
The team projected human capital using age-specific labour supply data and exponential modelling, accounting for levels of education and work experience.
The Global Burden of Disease 2021 (GBD 2021) database provided data on diabetes incidence, prevalence, disability-adjusted life years, years of life lost and mortality. The researchers obtained demographic, economic, education, labour and capital data from several international databases.
These included data from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Penn World Table (PWT), the World Bank and the United Nations.
The team converted all estimates to 2017 international dollars for cross-country comparisons. They also modelled intermediate scenarios that considered reductions of 10% and 20% in diabetes burden by 2050. Sensitivity analyses included different discount rates and uncertainty intervals for morbidity and mortality estimates.
Diabetes productivity loss and regional results
Modelling efforts indicated that diabetes could reduce cumulative global economic output by 5.177 trillion international dollars between 2021 and 2050. This value represents about 0.12% of the projected global GDP. The estimated per-capita cost was $591.
Diabetes-related disability accounted for most economic losses. The findings highlight that diabetes-related morbidity could reduce productivity and affect daily functioning for patients worldwide.
The economic impact varied considerably across countries and regions. In absolute terms, the United States accounted for the largest overall losses. China and India were expected to have the next biggest losses.
Relative to GDP, Kuwait, the US, and South Korea experienced the highest losses. People in Guyana, the US, and Singapore were estimated to bear the biggest per-capita economic losses.
The disease burden was not distributed equally across regions. North America had the highest projected macro-economic burden from diabetes. It also had one of the highest per-person costs, despite representing only 7% of the world’s disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) related to diabetes.
South Asia had a much larger share of the global burden from diabetes, contributing nearly one-quarter of global DALYs, but showed smaller economic losses in dollar terms.
The projected economic burden was largest in high-income countries. They could lose approximately 3.217 trillion international dollars in economic output, with per-person costs exceeding $2 500. However, low- and middle-income countries carried a disproportionately high disease burden, accounting for 81% of global DALYs.
But due to smaller economies, lower average incomes, lower treatment intensity, and different healthcare cost structures, the financial losses appeared lower in dollar terms.
Lowering the diabetes-related burden by 20% by 2050 could yield worldwide gains of about $190bn. Reducing diabetes-related incidence and mortality to the lowest observed global levels could yield an estimated 1.11trn dollars in global macro-economic gains.
Modelling limitations
The authors noted several limitations. The model did not account for changes in workforce participation among household members caring for people with diabetes, potentially underestimating the burden. Missing data for 64 countries and territories were interpolated or projected, treatment costs were extrapolated partly from US and other high-income country data, and estimates inherited uncertainty from GBD inputs.
These assumptions mean country-level point estimates should be interpreted cautiously.
Diabetes prevention and economic policy implications
The study findings suggest that diabetes may not only harm patients but also affect societies and economies through healthcare costs, disability, lower productivity, and early deaths. The estimated global economic loss from diabetes may even exceed Japan’s 2021 GDP.
The authors argue that governments should increase investments in diabetes prevention and treatment, improve access to healthcare services, and make treatments more affordable to strengthen the global economy, not just improve health for patients worldwide.
Study details
The global economic burden of diabetes for 190 countries 2021-50: a macro-economic modelling study
Jinxi Li, Ruxu Zhang, Ruixi Li et al.
Published in Nature Communications on 5 May 2026
Abstract
Diabetes imposes a substantial health burden, yet its macro-economic consequences remain incompletely quantified. Here we use a health-augmented macro-economic model to estimate output losses attributable to diabetes across 190 countries and territories during 2021–2050. We project that diabetes could reduce cumulative global output by 5.177 trillion international dollars over this period, with substantial heterogeneity in relative losses as a share of GDP across countries. Country-level burdens vary markedly, reflecting heterogeneity in demographic trends, macro-economic conditions, diabetes prevalence, health-system capacity and treatment costs. Most projected output loss is attributable to diabetes-related disability rather than premature mortality. In this work, we provide comparable cross-country estimates of the long-run macro-economic burden of diabetes, informing prioritisation of prevention, treatment policies, and related investments.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Rising global obesity presents ‘unparalleled’ health threat – Lancet report
Civil society unites to demand action on national diabetes crisis
Half of those with diabetes don’t know they have it – US study
Undiagnosed diabetes cases highest in Gauteng – SA analysis
Fierce debate over a new theory to tackle the global obesity pandemic