We need to pay more attention to Americans who are on the cusp of developing diabetes. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that there are 57 million Americans with prediabetes. If that number doesn’t scare you, consider this:
There are more than twice as many prediabetics in this country than type 1 and type 2 diabetics combined.
That’s why an industry group’s recent call for better treatment options, lifestyle changes, and more emphasis on reducing heart disease risk for prediabetics was important.
The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists brought together American and international diabetes experts to address what it calls a pandemic. The panel discussed, among other things, the financial costs and consequences of ignoring prediabetes and called for more research into treatment options. (Read the consensus report.)
Now those of us with diabetes—type 1s and type 2s—don’t present a unified front when it comes to this sort of issue. Type 1 diabetics and their advocates—often parents—can get rankled when they’re lumped in with type 2 diabetics. They feel that type 2 diabetes is largely preventable, while type 1 selects its victims indiscriminately. (I got an earful at a Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation dinner one night from type 1 parents, who insisted fat, lazy type 2 diabetics were stealing all the research dollars from their kids. When I pulled out my blood-glucose monitor for a premeal check, they were shocked to find out that active people of average weight could have type 2 diabetes.)
Yes, the prospect of research dollars being diverted away from diabetes and toward its precursor—which is always a possibility when dollars are limited—is scary. But if the medical community doesn’t tackle prediabetes, we’ll all be squeezed when treatment resources come under greater strain. What happens when a system that’s already hurting for specialists gets flooded by millions of new patients? Nothing good, that’s for certain.
(PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO)
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