Diabetes doesn’t always announce itself with obvious symptoms. Malaysia’s health data show why waiting until you feel sick can be a dangerous strategy.
Why it matters
Imagine this.
You go to work normally.
You makan normally. Nothing hurts. You don’t feel sick. Then during a health screening somebody checks your blood glucose. Suddenly you’re told something isn’t right. This isn’t an unusual Malaysian story.
The Malaysian’s National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS) 2023 estimated that 15.6% of Malaysian adults had diabetes. Of these, 9.7% already knew they had it but another 5.9% had raised blood glucose without previously knowing they had diabetes.
That last number is the one worth thinking about.
Why wouldn’t I know?
Type 2 diabetes often develops gradually. The body becomes less responsive to insulin, the hormone that helps regulate blood glucose. Over time, the pancreas may struggle to compensate adequately. Blood glucose can therefore remain elevated without producing an immediate dramatic warning.
Some people eventually experience symptoms such as increased thirst, frequent urination, fatigue, blurred vision or unexplained weight loss. Others may have few obvious symptoms. That’s why relying entirely on “I feel okay” isn’t a screening strategy.
Diabetes is only part of Malaysia’s hidden-health problem
The same NHMS survey found something similar with blood pressure and cholesterol. Overall hypertension prevalence was 29.2%, including 11.9% with raised blood pressure who did not previously know they had hypertension.
Hypercholesterolaemia affected 33.3%, including 18.1% with raised cholesterol who didn’t previously know about it.
Notice the pattern?
Some of the diseases that eventually cause serious problems can spend years being remarkably quiet.
So should everyone panic and get every test available?
No.
More testing isn’t automatically better medicine. Screening should depend on factors such as age, family history, body weight, pregnancy history, blood pressure and other individual risk factors.
A doctor can help determine which tests are appropriate and how often they should be performed. But there’s a useful principle here: Don’t wait for symptoms before thinking about prevention.
Malaysia’s bigger problem
More than half of Malaysian adults — 54.4% — were overweight or obese in NHMS 2023, while almost half showed sedentary behaviour.
Those numbers don’t mean everyone who is overweight will develop diabetes. They do mean Malaysia has a large population carrying metabolic risk. And that makes early detection increasingly important.
ET takeaway: A health screening isn’t about searching desperately for something wrong with you. Sometimes it’s simply about finding a quiet problem while there’s still plenty of time to do something about it.
Photo by Yusron El Jihan
