Britons ‘often unaware they may have diabetes’
RESEARCH CALLS FOR NATIONAL SCREENING PLAN TO IMPROVE DIAGNOSIS
A NEW STUDY has revealed that more than 500,000 people in the UK, about one per cent of the population, could be living with type 2 diabetes “without knowing” it.
The study by the University of Exeter has suggested that a national screening programme should be brought in to improve diagnosis.
Scientists analysed blood samples from 200,000 Britons aged between 40 and 70 on the UK Biobank database and compared their blood sugar levels to GP records. Of those surveyed 2,000 had very high blood sugar levels. This indicated that they had diabetes, but were not diagnosed with the condition.
The situation is alarming in Britain as two-thirds of adults are either obese or overweight, one of the highest rates in the western world. Experts warn that the country’s obesity epidemic has led to soaring levels of type 2 diabetes.
“As people can have type 2 diabetes for many years without symptoms, diagnosis may be delayed, increasing the risk of complications. Our study shows that population-level screening could identify type 2 diabetes far earlier and potentially reduce complications,” said the co-author of the study, Dr Katherine Young.
“We identified that screening by HbA1c would have identified an extra one per cent of a population aged 40-70 years as having undiagnosed diabetes. This screening diagnosis would have been approximately two years before a clinical diagnosis was made.”
Diabetes occurs when blood sugar levels rise to dangerous heights and can lead to fatal complications. According to NHS England, type 2 diabetes can sometimes lead to stroke, blindness, heart disease, kidney failure, limb amputation and early death.
It is mostly diagnosed by measuring the level of HbA1c, a haemoglobin which is chemically linked to sugar, in the bloodstream, The symptoms of type 2 diabetes, which include frequently going to the toilet, being thirsty and feeling tired, are easy to miss, said experts.
Obese men older than 60 years were more likely to have undiagnosed diabetes than women, the researchers found.
Currently, more than four million people in the UK have diabetes, compared with just 1.8 million in 1998.
Dr Faye Riley, of Diabetes UK, said: ‘Type 2 diabetes can go undetected for years and this research flags that all too often, people can have the condition but not know it.’
The research was presented at a virtual session of the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes last week.