This was an interesting study. One thing to consider is whether the CDC has changed the way it defines diabetes, which the speaker hinted that they sort of have. She hinted that the HbA1c is less sensitive to diabetes. So, if you changed the way you diagnose diabetes, and you get a different number of people diagnosed with diabetes, it may be that there are truly fewer cases of diabetes or it may just be that the new test didn’t pick up all of the people the old tests did.
I think the public health messages shouldn’t change: Be active. Don’t gain weight. And all the other diabetes prevention messages. If primary care doctors have been encouraging people to do that, maybe this is evidence that their work is paying off. That would be a positive message.
Dr. Amanda Adler is consultant physician at Cambridge (England) University’s Addenbrooke’s Hospital and chair of the technology appraisals committee for the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, England. She gave these comments in an interview at the meeting.
