Aggressive pre-diabetes approach needed

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An early and aggressive approach before anyone GETS to the 'cusp' would be even better! :D
 
There was no warning for me. All of a sudden I was drinking loads of water every day and lost two stone almost overnight (down the toilet). I wasnt any where being overweight it happened so quickly it was frightening.
 
The only way to do that is to screen everyone at regular intervals, a bit like the breast screening program. The people that get diagnosed with pre-diabetes are the lucky minority (wasn't Anthony WT pre-diabetic?) probably diagnosed because of routine tests for some other complaint.
And of course that would put up the NHS spend enormously.
 
Austin Mini said:
There was no warning for me. All of a sudden I was drinking loads of water every day and lost two stone almost overnight (down the toilet). I wasnt any where being overweight it happened so quickly it was frightening.
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Type 1 is unpredictable and can develop in weeks or days, so it would be very difficult (if not totally impractical and costly) to monitor for it, but there is a very good chance that Type 2 can be caught in the early stages. Being overweight is not a risk factor for Type 1 as far as I know.
 
The thing is how do you target the people to monitor for even Type 2.

Prior to diagnosis the only time that my surgery had ever weighed me was when I had the new patient medical 11 years ago. Was I overweight then? Possibly, but not by much.

I would have declared that my father was diabetic, but the NHS isn't joined up enough to all flag that there are a few other diabetics in my family too (and none of us have the same PCT let alone same GP).

It's easy in retrospect to say that they should of monitored someone like, but I think it's much easier said then done.
 
Would it not be fairly easy to do an HBA1c every 3 yrs on everyone? In fact a screening blood test for kidney and liver function would be very useful I would have thought, and not overly expensive.
 
Vicsetter said:
Would it not be fairly easy to do an HBA1c every 3 yrs on everyone? In fact a screening blood test for kidney and liver function would be very useful I would have thought, and not overly expensive.
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I agree, if they could get people in to attend for the tests, or if they were routinely performed when someone comes in for something else and may be at risk, then you might be able to minimise costs and catch a lot of people early. I suppose the problem then becomes, where does it lead? We are very aware of how poorly some people are treated when their diagnosis has been made, so how vigilant would any care or follow up be? :(
 
Vicsetter said:
Would it not be fairly easy to do an HBA1c every 3 yrs on everyone? In fact a screening blood test for kidney and liver function would be very useful I would have thought, and not overly expensive.
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Although I'd agree with the concept, the sort of queues you would get at my local hospital with a third of the 380,000 population coming in for a blood test each year would be frightening!

It can already take an hour or two if you are unfortunately enough to go through the outpatients blood test department let alone trying to find a parking space before you even enter the queue 😱 OK, some of the GP's (such as mine) offer the service too - but that is usually fairly booked out with non-screening tests for patients.

I could suggest that maybe GP's should do health screenings every 3 or 5 years for all patients, but I'd bet they would complain they don't have time for that either.

My company has started offering a health screening for all employees over 40 performed once a year in company time and on company premises. Optional of course.
 
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