Is It Time to Prioritize Diabetes Prevention in Practice?

[摘要] Diabetes has reached epidemic proportions and can lead to serious complications, including heart disease, stroke, hypertension, blindness, kidney disease, diseases of the nervous system, amputations, and premature death. Consequently, diabetes prevention becomes critically important to stem the tide of increasing diabetes prevalence. Although there have been suggestions for general societalwide strategies for prevention based on the adoption of a healthy lifestyle including diet and exercise goals the most effective strategy currently for diabetes prevention seems to be to identify and treat individuals at high risk, adolescents and adults with prediabetes. At this time, there are approximately 84 million Americans with prediabetes.1 Prediabetes is a state of an increased risk of developing diabetes as well as an increased risk for cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality. There has been some debate over the glucose level used to designate prediabetes in different countries and even some debate over the validity of the concept.2-9 However, many guideline panels, including ones in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, in their evaluation of the contemporary evidence, have created recommendations promoting detection and treatment of prediabetes as a strategy to slow or prevent the progression to diabetes and associated outcomes.4-9 These guideline committees and organizations include the US Preventive Services Taskforce and the American Diabetes Association.

[学科分类] 过敏症与临床免疫学