"Type 2 diabetes is growing rapidly with the increasing rate of obesity and has reached epidemic proportions in this country. Identifying pre-diabetics and halting the disease could prevent millions of individuals from developing diabetes and would avert the very high future costs of treating it. Lifestyle interventions in the pre-diabetic stage offer benefit not only by preventing type 2 diabetes but also by reducing cardiovascular risk factors," said Dr. Ackermann.

In 2002, the Diabetes Prevention Program, a large clinical trial, determined that diet and exercise sharply lower the risk that a person with pre-diabetes will develop diabetes. In a 2006 study Dr. Ackermann reported that it would be cost effective for Medicare to pay for diabetes prevention at age 50 rather than to deny prevention benefits until age 65 when many individuals will have already developed the disease.

Since that 2006 study, health insurance companies have taken a much closer look at paying for structured diabetes prevention programs as a means to improve health and to help curb the runaway costs of health care. In 2010, the UnitedHealth Group, a large nationwide health insurance carrier, began paying for a diabetes prevention program offered by the YMCA of the USA. The health plans, however, only pay for this treatment when a blood test shows pre-diabetes.

"Since health plans are beginning to pay for pre-diabetes treatments, doctors now have a more compelling reason to encourage patients who have risk factors to complete a screening test," said Dr. Ackermann. "The more practical A1c test could help doctors perform testing on a much larger scale than ever before."

Source: Indiana University School of Medicine