This study clarified the age of death in patients with or without diabetes using the largest health insurance database in Japan. This population-based retrospective cohort study was performed using the National Database of Health Insurance Claims and Specific Health Checkups of Japan (NDB) data. The ages of death between people with and without diabetes were compared. A total of 142,277,986 patients (74,488,962 women and 67,789,024 men) over 6 years, including 4,647,016 females, and 6,507,817 males with diabetes, were included. 2,786,071 females and 2,975,876 males died over 6 years, including 652,699 females and 954,655 males with diabetes. The average age of death in patients with diabetes was 2.6 years less than that of patients without diabetes. This descriptive epidemiological study illustrated the difference in age at death of patients with and without diabetes.This study compared the trends in the age of death of people with diabetes with people without diabetes in Japan. Continuous quantification using descriptive epidemiology should help to remove the stigma associated with having diabetes.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Data sourceThe study cohort comprised anonymized data of individuals enrolled in the NDB of the universal health coverage system of patients with any insurance program in Japan. The NDB data provided information on personal identifiers 3 , date, age group, sex, description of the procedures performed, World Health Organization International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) diagnosis codes, medical care received medical examinations conducted without the results, and prescribed drugs.