By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters)

Doctors need to check patients for diabetes if they even suspect a patient may have the condition, and start using drugs to treat it right away, according to new guidelines released on Wednesday.

An estimated 90 percent of all patients diagnosed with diabetes are not controlling it enough to prevent heart disease and other complications, the experts at the American College of Endocrinology and the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists said.

At-risk patients, such as the overweight, should start getting screened at 30. If they show poor control of blood sugar, they should go on drugs right away, the two groups said.

"Numerous studies have shown that significant cardiovascular disease develops years before the onset of diabetes," the groups said in a statement.

A measure of glucose control called A1C should bring back a result of 6.5 percent or lower, the groups said. Fasting glucose should be 110 or below and a two-hour glucose challenge test should come back 140 or below.

"Patients with diabetes are often in denial," said Dr. Jaime Davidson, an endocrinologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas and chairman of the guidelines conference.

If a family doctor or primary care doctor suspects a patient may have diabetes, even a young patient, he or she should test immediately, Davidson said.

And a fasting glucose test is no good, he said. The patient should undergo a two-hour glucose challenge to see how well his or her body controls blood sugar.

Insurance companies may balk at paying for the tests, but they shouldn't, Davidson said.

"It is cheaper to pay for that today than to pay for the first heart attack," Davidson said in an interview.

The groups acknowledged that diet and exercise can stop a person from becoming diabetic, but said most patients fail.

"Lifestyle is essential. But in the real world it doesn't really allow us to get a patient to target," said Dr. Harold Lebovitz of the State University of New York, who chaired the writing committee.

"Doctors have big hearts and patients come to them to say 'Give me another chance. Give me a diet. Give me another three months,"' Davidson said.

But he said damage can occur during those three months. "We prefer to get them on target from day one and keep them there," he said.

Diabetics also need to see their doctors often. "If they are diabetic, one time a year is not enough. Because in that time, something is going to happen."

An estimated 20 million Americans have type-2 diabetes and one-third do not know it, the groups said. Another 41 million have what is known as "pre-diabetes," which will develop into diabetes if not controlled.

Diabetes costs the economy $132 billion a year, according to the American Diabetes Association.

"Eighty percent of the money spent is not in treating diabetes. Eighty percent of that money is spent in treating complications," Davidson said.

Drug treatments include metformin, the glitazone or thiazolidinedione class of drugs which includes GlaxoSmithKline's Avandia, and orlistat, sold under the brand name Xenical by Roche . Orlistat is a weight loss drug that also appears to prevent progression to diabetes.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticl...storyID=7515741

You would almost have to question what sort of recreational drugs the authors of this sad, dangerous nonsense are on, in order for them to come up with this "solution". Surely it can't only be the money they get from drug companies, that leads them to do this.

Cheers,

Malcolm

Of course they fail, the diet that they get put on is the stupid ADA diet that pushes lots of carbs. If the patients were put on a low-carb diet, the success rate would be much higher.

When I was first diagnosed with diabetes, I followed the diet so carefully. It was a diaster. I gained weight. I couldn't get my blood sugars in control. I had to go on medication. My blood sugar is now in good control. My doctor has taken me off all medication. I wish I had gone on this WOL when I was a new diabetic. I struggled for 10 years!

Gee, lets see now, that’s about 50 million more suffering from drug deficiency disease....

Fortunately there is a magic bullet cure rite down at the corner drug store.

These doctors should be cureing diabetes, and low carb is a cure. I am proof of that. The ADA web site has diet advice that tells you to eat carbs, and if it causes your blood sugar to increase, just take more medecine. When someone told me that, I couldn't believe it and looked for myself. The only worse organization is the american heart association.

Read somewhere on one of the 'threads' of someone possessing a glycometer and kept it to check on their blood-sugar levels. On realising that this could be a useful instrument and an aid to dieting I obtained one from my local pharmacy only to discover that my fasting BS was on the diabetic borderline! The regular readings were in the prediabetic range but occasionally peaked into the diabetic range. I experimented with 'milk thistle' and after about 3 days my BS readings returned to the normal range and have remained there since. Other than understanding that 'milk thistle' is good for the liver and possibly other organs, I had only guessed that it might help with BS and it did. Others would need to test it for themselves to see if it brings about similar results.

Sad, sad, sad. Is this a reuters artical or a press release from Roche? Xenical to slow the progression of diabetes? They've got to be kidding me. This is when it makes me so angry that they poo-poo LC. I can understand poo-pooing when it's misunderstood as the no-veggie bacon binge. But these guys actually suggest taking a drug that gives you loss-of-continence fat-diarrhea as a good way to prevent diabetes. That makes me sick.

I always wonder how they know how many people have a disease and don't know it when the person doesn't know they have it?

The American Diabetes Association has zero cred with me. Here's the main reason why: http://www.diabetes.org/support-the...Recognition.jsp

If you know someone with diabetes who believes that the ADA is trying to help them, you might want to pass that link on to them.

Wyv

Wyvrn, thanks for the link. What an eye opener!!! It looks like every pharmaceutical company in the world has donated large amounts of money to the ADA.

It's not just the ADA. Check out the 2004 annual report of the American Heart Association. http://www.americanheart.org

The top donor categories (page 22) are loaded with pharma and big agribusiness and processed food manufacturers. Both ADA and AHA treat low-carbing like it doesn't even exist. Any bets on the American Cancer Society?

Wyv

Wow Wyvrn....what an eye-opener!

Thanks a lot!

Increasingly I feel that BigPharma sees the human population of the planet as a resource to be exploited. Instead of slaughtering us and selling our flesh they feed us food that makes us sick and then sell us "medicine" that cannot possibly cure the non exixtant disease that is really just an natural response to the toxic food. This makes us dependant on their antidote.