Screening It has been estimated that by the year 2010, three million Canadians will have diabetes. Research tells us that many people have diabetes for five to seven years before they are diagnosed and many have already developed complications. The guidelines, aimed at diagnosing diabetes early and preventing or delaying complications, recommend that all people over the age of 45 should be screened for diabetes at least every three years. If you have diabetes, your brothers, sisters and children are at risk. Urge them to tell their doctors that there's a family history of diabetes and ask for regular diabetes testing.
Early diagnosis means early treatment that can delay or prevent serious complications.
This is important because people who would not have previously been diagnosed with diabetes may now fall into the diabetes range. Borderline diabetes and pre-diabetes do not exist. Ask your doctor to screen you for diabetes using a fasting plasma glucose test and ask for your results. In 1996, the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial showed that tight control of blood glucose levels in people with Type 1 diabetes could drastically reduce the rate and slow the development of complications. This is encouraging news, as it proves that controlling blood glucose pays off.