Productivity of research on diabetes between 1992 and 2002 scanty of research in developing countries

Background: Diabetes is a worldwide problem nowadays. The present study was designed to assess the productivity of research on diabetes and to evaluate the gap between the burden of diabetes and research on diabetes, in both developed and developing countries. Materials and methods: An extensive search in PubMed database for diabetes publications, using diabetes as the Mesh term, was carried out to ascertain the proportion of diabetes publications from countries of different regional and economic classifications in 1992, 1997 and 2002. All information related to the distribution of the global burden of diabetes was extracted from the literature. Results: Worldwide, the overall growth rate of publications on diabetes was 66.3% over the ten past years. Developed market economies, (except for US), contributed 85.4% of publications in 1992, 83.0% in 1997 and 76.7% in 2002. Contributions of developing countries increased from 12.3% in 1992 to 13.8% in 1997 and 19.8% in 2002. Contributions from developing eastern European countries rose from 2.2% in 1992 to 3.1% and 3.4% in 1997 and 2002, respectively. In 2002, the developed and developing countries produced about 128 and 7.5 publications per one million of adult diabetic patients, respectively. Conclusion: Despite the increase in proportion of international diabetes publications of developing countries, there is still a wide gap between developed and developing countries regarding diabetes research. Considering the rising trend in diabetes burden, particularly in developing countries, it seems vital to pay more attention on diabetes research in these countries.