Now a blood test to detect the onset of diabetes!

A new blood test can save millions of people from diabetes, by detecting the risk of the disease before it actually develops. Researchers have discovered that a simple blood test reveals an individual's risk of developing type-2 diabetes before they develop either condition - far earlier than previously believed. The findings could help doctors provide earlier diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Michal Shani and Prof. Shlomo Vinker of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine and Clalit Health Services collaborated on the study. To get a picture of blood glucose levels over time, doctors test for levels of glycated haemoglobin, or A1c, in the blood. When blood glucose levels are high, more A1c is formed. So A1c serves as a biomarker, indicating average blood glucose levels over a two- to three-month period.

According to the ADA, having an A1c level of 6.5 percent or more is an indicator of the disease and an A1c level of between 5.7 and 6.4 percent is an indicator of prediabetes. To evaluate the A1c test's ability to screen for diabetes in high-risk patients, the researchers analyzed the medical history of 10,201 patients who were given the test in central Israel between 2002 and 2005. They found that overall, 22.5 percent of the patients developed diabetes within five to eight years. Patients with A1c levels as low as 5.5 percent - below the official threshold for diagnosing diabetes were significantly more likely to develop diabetes than patients with A1c levels below 5.5 percent.

Every 0.5 percent increase in A1c levels up to 7 percent doubled the patients' risk of developing diabetes. Obesity also doubled patients' risk of developing diabetes, the researchers found.

The findings have been published in the European Journal of General Practice.

What is diabetes?

Diabetes is a metabolic disease which is characterised by high blood sugar levels. It can be caused either due to the lack of insulin (type 1 diabetes) or because the body's cells fail to respond to the insulin produced (type 2 diabetes). Some of the common symptoms of diabetes are hunger, frequent urination and increased thirst. While type 1 diabetes is usually genetic, type 2 diabetes is caused more by lifestyle factors. It is one of the common 'lifestyle diseases' which is plaguing people in the developed countries and often has a causal link to heart diseases, hypertension and obesity.

Tips to prevent diabetes

Diabetes has already become a huge epidemic of our time, and the number of diabetics will keep on increasing over the next 20 years or probably beyond that. A lot is being said and written about controlling diabetes and living a healthy life with diabetes, but the prevention aspect of diabetes also needs to be highlighted. The most disturbing part of this disease is that you cannot tell if you're destined to be a diabetic. Therefore, it's better to take the right measures beforehand and keep diabetes at bay.

1. Get your sugar levels checked: A lot of people have prediabetes (fasting sugar: 100-125 mg/dl) and are totally clueless about it. A blood sugar test will help you to understand whether you're prediabetic and what are your chances of developing diabetes. If you get diagnosed with prediabetes, then you can take the right steps and prevent it from transforming into irreversible diabetes. Here are things you should know about prediabetes.

2. Change your lifestyle: Sometimes, small changes can make a huge difference. Lifestyle intervention for preventing diabetes is the best example for this. Several studies on diabetes prevention programme have proved that diabetes can be prevented effectively by giving up sedentary lifestyle and adopting healthier changes. Read more about sedentary lifestyle and diabetes risk.Read more tips

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