Previous case-control studies of Caucasian ethnicity have reported the association of adhesive capsulitis (AC) with diabetes mellitus (DM). To further investigate the risk of AC in subjects with DM in an Asian population, we performed the present cohort study featured the analyses of a randomly selected sub-dataset of one million individuals insured by the Taiwan National Health Insurance for the period spanning 1996-2008. The study and comparison cohorts consisted of 5,109 newly diagnosed diabetic patients and 20,473 randomly selected non-diabetic subjects aged ≥ 20 years in the year 2000. Both cohorts were followed up until December 2008 to measure AC incidence. We found that the incidence density of AC in the DM cohort was 3.08 times that of the comparison cohort (146.9 vs. 47.7 per 10,000 person-years), and rate ratios varied from 1.23 to 4.98 by categorized sociodemographic factors and comorbidity. The hazard ratio (HR) of AC for DM subjects remained significantly higher than that for non-DM subjects (p < 0.001) in all models. The HR increased in older age-groups (p < 0.001) and females (p < 0.001). Hyperlipidemia consistently increases the risk of AC in both univariate (HR = 2.67, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.36-4.06) and multivariate analyses (HR = 1.29, 95% CI 1.11-1.49). In this eight-year study period, we found that DM and accompanying hyperlipidemia were independent risk factors for AC. The risks are higher for older-aged women. Findings in the present study help to identify high-risk patient groups to exercise early prevention of AC and enhance comprehensive care quality of DM subjects.