Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. Apr 25, 2016; 7(8): 165-174
Published online Apr 25, 2016. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v7.i8.165
Diabetes epidemic sweeping the Arab world
Bisher Abuyassin, Ismail Laher
Bisher Abuyassin, Ismail Laher, Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3, Canada
Author contributions: Abuyassin B conducted the literature search and prepared the manuscript; Laher I reviewed and edited the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors have no financial conflicts of interest related to this work.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Ismail Laher, PhD, Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, 2176 Health Science Mall, Medical Block C, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3, Canada. ilaher@mail.ubc.ca
Telephone: +1-604-8225882 Fax: +1-604-8226012
Received: December 16, 2015
Peer-review started: December 18, 2015
First decision: January 18, 2016
Revised: January 27, 2016
Accepted: February 16, 2016
Article in press: February 17, 2016
Published online: April 25, 2016
Abstract

The prevalence of type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) has increased dramatically during the last 2 decades, a fact driven by the increased prevalence of obesity, the primary risk factor for T2DM. The figures for diabetes in the Arab world are particularly startling as the number of people with diabetes is projected to increase by 96.2% by 2035. Genetic risk factors may play a crucial role in this uncontrolled raise in the prevalence of T2DM in the Middle Eastern region. However, factors such as obesity, rapid urbanization and lack of exercise are other key determinants of this rapid increase in the rate of T2DM in the Arab world. The unavailability of an effective program to defeat T2DM has serious consequences on the increasing rise of this disease, where available data indicates an unusually high prevalence of T2DM in Arabian children less than 18 years old. Living with T2DM is problematic as well, since T2DM has become the 5th leading cause of disability, which was ranked 10th as recently as 1990. Giving the current status of T2DM in the Arab world, a collaborative international effort is needed for fighting further spread of this disease.

Keywords: Diabetes, Arab world, Epidemiology, Etiology, Risk factors and complication

Core tip: The Middle Eastern and North African region has the second highest rate of increases in diabetes anywhere in the world. We comprehensively review type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in adults and children from 22 Arab speaking countries by reviewing data published from 1980 to 2015; this allowed us to have a better view of the trends in the dramatic increases of T2DM impacting the Arabic region. We also discuss the etiology of this uncontrolled medical crisis and the most commonly reported complications in these Arab speaking countries. Finally, we highlight a number of crucial data that appear to be unavailable but which may be essential for a more comprehensive understanding of the diabetes epidemic sweeping the Arabian region.