Diabetes can be predicted by a blood test

MADRID, July 23 (EUROPE PRESS) –

Researchers from the Veterans Affairs Department of the United States (Veterans Affairs) reported in an article published in the journal "PLOS ONE" that routine blood tests can help predict diabetes.

In addition, experts have shown that the glucose levels found in standard medical tests in outpatients showed a risk of developing diabetes in the next five years, even when glucose levels did not reach the level of diagnosis of diabetes.

"The use of blood glucose in blood samples taken during regular visits to the doctor could indicate the need for additional tests, allow preventive intervention in high-risk individuals before the onset of the disease." and lead to earlier identification of diabetes, "said the researchers.

The American Diabetes Association recommends testing diabetes with fasting blood glucose, an oral glucose tolerance test (which requires fasting and ingestion of glucose), a rate of HgbA1c (a measure of average blood glucose compared to previous level (two to three months), or random blood glucose if accompanied by symptoms caused by high blood sugar.

These tests are often included in routine laboratory work done by patients during or after external medical appointments. However, as many patients do not fast when their blood is collected, routine blood tests with random glucose levels below 200 mg / dL have not been found to be useful for the diabetes test.

Specifically, at work, researchers examined data from these routine blood tests to determine whether random plasma glucose levels would predict which patients would develop diabetes in the future. They studied data from more than 900,000 patients in whom diabetes had not been diagnosed yet.

All patients had to undergo at least three random blood glucose tests for one year. Most of these tests have probably been obtained "opportunistically", that is to say during regular visits to the doctor who are not specifically related to the detection of diabetes.

In the five years of the study, approximately 10% of the study group members developed diabetes. In this sense, high random plasma glucose levels, although not reaching the diagnostic threshold of diabetes, accurately predicted the course of diabetes over the next five years.

Finally, the researchers found that patients with at least two random blood glucose readings of 115 mg / dL or more over a 12-month period had a high probability of being diagnosed with diabetes within a few years. Glucose levels of 130 mg / dL or higher were even more predictive of diabetes.