Keeping Diabetes at Bay

Stopping diabetes before it starts is the goal of Prevent Diabetes STAT: Screen, Test, Act—Today, a multiyear initiative run by the American Medical Association (AMA) and CDC. With more than 86 million Americans living with prediabetes and nearly 90% of them unaware of it, urgent action is needed to combat the chronic illness, according to the CDC.

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“We have the scientific evidence and we’ve built the infrastructure to do something about it, but far too few people know they have prediabetes and that they can take action to prevent or delay developing type 2 diabetes,” said Ann Albright, PhD, RD, director of CDC’s Division of Diabetes Translation.

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The program, which follows 2 years of “laying groundwork,” aims to empower both lay people and clinicians with the information they need to prevent diabetes. The CDC launched its National Diabetes Prevention Program in 2012 in response to research that found participating in lifestyle change programs significantly reduced the incidence of type 2 diabetes among high-risk individuals. The CDC says there are more than 500 such programs around the country. In 2013, the AMA introduced its Improving Health Outcomes Initiative, aimed at preventing both type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

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Together, the CDC and AMA have developed a tool kit to serve as a guide for health care providers on the best ways to screen and refer high-risk patients to diabetes prevention programs in their communities. The tool kit, which includes fact sheets on the evidence-based diabetes prevention program, a risk assessment questionnaire, and patient handouts, is available at http://www.ama-assn.org/sub/prevent-diabetes-stat/toolkit.html.