Experts welcome new guidelines on diabetes risks

By Alice Keesing
Advertiser Health Writer

Thousands of people in Hawai'i have diabetes or are at risk and don't know it, according to the American Diabetes Association.

New screening guidelines by the association and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Diseases will help reduce the potentially devastating effects of the disease, said Wendy Sefo, executive director of the association's Hawai'i office. The groups also have coined a word — prediabetes — for a condition posing the greatest risk for the disease.

Hawai'i has the highest per-capita rate of diabetes in the nation — 1 in 4 people have the disease, compared with a national average of 1 in 12. Experts estimate that 110,000 people are diagnosed with diabetes and another 50,000 have it but don't know it, Sefo said. Even more people are in the pre-diabetes category.

"People will live for seven or 10 years before they ever find out they have diabetes," Sefo said. "The way they find out is they have a heart attack, or a stroke, or blindness, or sores the don't heal. By then we can't turn back the clock."

With new screening guidelines and the designation of prediabetes, Sefo said, more people will have the chance to improve their diet and exercise to prevent the onset of diabetes and its complications.

Diabetes is a metabolic disorder in which people have trouble converting food to energy. It is the leading cause of adult blindness, kidney failure and nontraumatic amputations and a major cause of heart disease and stroke.

The new testing guidelines recommend that people who are overweight or 45 or older should be regularly screened with a simple blood test taken after fasting overnight.

Screening may be advisable if there are other risk factors such high blood pressure, high cholesterol, a family history of diabetes, a history of gestational diabetes or giving birth to a baby weighing more than 9 pounds, or belonging to an ethnic group other than Caucasian.

The national guidelines recommend screening every three years but Sefo's staff is encouraging those who have a family history of the disease to be tested every year.

The term "prediabetes" describes an increasingly common condition in which blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not yet diabetic. Studies show that most people with this condition go on to develop Type 2 diabetes in 10 years; it also indicates a 50 percent greater likelihood of heart attack or stroke.

The condition is reversible, however, and the development of

Type 2 diabetes can be delayed or prevented through exercise and improved diet, Sefo said.

For more information, call the ADA Hawai'i at 947-5979 or call (800) DIABETES or visit www.diabetes.org.

Reach Alice Keesing at akeesing@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8014