Diabetes is a major and growing cause of premature death worldwide. Recent global estimates show millions of lives lost each year as a direct result of diabetes and its complications, with the burden rising over the last decade as prevalence increases and populations age.
The World Health Organization reports that in 2021, diabetes was directly responsible for about 1.6 million deaths, and an additional ~530,000 deaths from kidney disease were attributable to diabetes — together accounting for just over 2 million deaths that year (WHO, 2024 fact sheet). See the WHO summary here: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/diabetes.
The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) provides a broader recent estimate: the IDF Diabetes Atlas (11th edition) reports that diabetes was responsible for about 3.4 million deaths in 2024 and highlights the growing scale of the disease globally (IDF Diabetes Atlas). For context and the Atlas overview, see: https://diabetesatlas.org/.
For country-level figures: the United States reported 95,190 deaths where diabetes was listed as a cause in 2023 (CDC/NCHS — FastStats), with diabetes ranking among the leading causes of death in the U.S. See the CDC summary here: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/diabetes.htm.
Canada’s most recent published rate (2023) shows a diabetes death rate of about 18.1 per 100,000 population (Statista summary of diabetes mortality trends). That rate corresponds roughly to an order of magnitude of several thousand diabetes-attributable deaths annually in Canada (approx. ~7,000 if applied to a ~39 million population), though exact national totals and methods vary by source — see the Statista page: https://www.statista.com/statistics/495457/deaths-due-to-diabetes-worldwide-number-by-region/.
All of these figures come with methodological caveats: “deaths caused by diabetes” may be reported as deaths where diabetes is the underlying cause, deaths attributable to high blood glucose (modelled), or include related complications (e.g., kidney disease, cardiovascular events). For the most comparable, up-to-date national totals, check official national vital statistics (e.g., CDC WONDER for the U.S. or Statistics Canada releases) and the global overviews linked above.