Letter from the Editor #745:

If you attended the recent AADE meeting in Orlando and stopped by to visit our booth, you would have had an opportunity to meet with the developer and provider of our Diabetes In Control PreDiabetes Screening Test Kit. This simple mail-away test has already helped hundreds of people determine that they are at risk of diabetes or that they actually had undiagnosed diabetes. (We’re also considering launching a store tab on the site with the ability to purchase A1C tests and other diagnostic test in bulk for medical professionals. Let us know what you think in this week’s poll.)

If the patient has an A1c high enough to be diagnosed with diabetes then we all know what to do. The hard part comes when someone who has prediabetes comes to your office or pharmacy and asks for help. Typically we are so busy that we tell them to eat better and exercise but experience shows that those words scare people into doing nothing. Now, one of our contributors, David Rakel MD, FAAFP,  Associate Professor, Department of Family Medicine, Director, University of Wisconsin Integrative Medicine, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, has prepared a simple handout for your patients and their family members to use to prevent their prediabetes from progressing.

You might find that putting his handout together with the information in Item #1, Low Carb Beats Low Fat, will make it almost impossible for any patient to say they can’t do a thing about getting diabetes.
 

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Dave Joffe, Editor-in-chief