Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disorder that affects millions of people worldwide, making early detection crucial for effective management. This study assesses the effectiveness of three machine learning (ML) models, Logistic Regression (LR), Naïve Bayes (NB), and Decision Tree (DT), in predicting diabetes based on data from 392 individuals, including their demographic and clinical characteristics. The dataset underwent preprocessing to maintain data integrity, was standardized for model compatibility, and analyzed through feature correlation heatmaps, feature importance assessments, and statistical significance tests. The findings revealed that LR surpassed the other models, with the highest accuracy (78%), precision (73%), and F1-score (65%) for diabetic cases. NB showed moderate performance with 75% accuracy, while DT demonstrated the lowest accuracy (71%) due to overfitting. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis revealed strong discriminative power across all models, although perfect Area Under the Curve (AUC) scores indicate potential overfitting needing further validation. The study emphasizes the significance of key features like Glucose, Body Mass Index (BMI), and Age, which showed notable differences between diabetic and non-diabetic individuals. By enabling early detection and proactive management, these models can contribute to reducing diabetes-related complications, enhancing patient outcomes, and lessening the burden on healthcare systems. Future research should investigate ensemble learning, deep learning, and real-time data integration from Internet of Things (IoT) devices to improve predictive accuracy and scalability.