The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has decided an earlier five years of testing could help detect more people who have prediabetes, said Dr. Michael Barry, vice chair of the USPSTF.
That would give those folks a chance to avoid full-blown diabetes by adopting a healthier diet, exercising more often and losing weight, said Barry, director of the Informed Medical Decisions Program at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Diabetes is "a major risk factor for heart attacks and strokes, but also the leading cause of blindness and kidney failure in the United States, and a major reason behind limb amputations," he said. "No one would say this isn't important."
About 13% of American adults — 34 million people — have diabetes, according to the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
But more than one in three (35%) have prediabetes, a condition in which blood sugar levels are higher than normal but haven't yet irreversibly harmed the body's ability to respond to insulin.
"We know that epidemiologically we see a spike in the prevalence of both diabetes and prediabetes around age 35," Barry said.
The new recommendation and the science behind it were published Aug. 24 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The USPSTF's recommendation is important because under the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), insurers are required to fully cover any screening the task force endorses, with no out-of-pocket cost to patients.
In the case of diabetes, screening entails a safe and simple blood test to check for levels of either fasting blood sugar or haemoglobin A1C, Barry said.
The American Diabetes Association hailed the updated screening recommendations.
"New cases of diabetes continue to rise, and we know that approximately one-fourth of those with diabetes remain undiagnosed," said Dr. Robert Gabbay, the association's chief scientific and medical officer. "Lowering the age requirement down to 35 for those that are overweight or obese is a step in the right direction."
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