Overweight Adults Urged To Get Tested For Diabetes By US Task Force

Recommendation for screening overweight and obese adults between the ages of 40 and 70 for abnormal blood sugar has been made by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

All overweight and obese adults in the United States should be routinely screened for abnormal blood glucose levels as part of a heart disease risk assessment, according to new government recommendations. Excess weight is a known – but modifiable – risk factor for Type 2 diabetes. While two of the three methods involves fasting, which Pignone says could be a bit more inconvenient, the third is a blood test that gives an estimate over how blood sugar levels have been in a single person over two or three months.

They want to warn people that even if they do not show any symptoms of high blood sugar they should still get checked out. Patients who are then found with elevated blood sugar levels should then be referred to behavior counseling that recommends healthy eating and regular exercise.

Of course, the objective here was to make a better attempt at catching people at higher risks for developing diabetes at the earliest possible point.

These suggestions began in 2008 when trials discovered that lifestyle interventions were very effective in reducing the progress of diabetes and improved the control of cardiovascular risk. The Association said the newly released recommendation falls short of worldwide guidelines and that narrowing the focus on individuals aged 40-70 years old implies that the age group with the most number of undiagnosed disease goes unrecognized. “By finding abnormal blood glucose early, you may prevent that pathway by starting lifestyle interventions early”.

But the latest guidelines, published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, expanded that recommendation, largely because of evidence that as Americans have gotten heavier over the years, the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes has rapidly increased.

If people at risk for diabetes are not identified early, they may need treatment for diabetes complications later on – meaning that the health care system missed an opportunity to provide care that could have prevented these complications from occurring, Gabbay said.

“The American Diabetes Association recommends screening people with multiple risk factors regardless of age”, and every patient has unique factors that encourage or discourage diabetes screening, Selph said. Those found to abnormal blood sugar levels – the harbinger of diabetes – will be referred to comprehensive behavioral counseling. With this, he said that it is crucial that they focus on tests that they know are effective.