## 6 Discussion
### Recommendations  
With insights from the current work, we can present some recommendations. First, we can see that even with limited data, patients can be pre-screened for diabetes, and in case of their classification as diabetic, they can be advised to make appropriate changes to their lifestyle. We have found that physical activity plays an important role in diabetes development. Lower levels of physical activity were found to correlate with more weight, higher levels of LDL (the \"bad\" cholesterol), as well as hypertension. Thus, everyone needs to include higher levels of physical activity in their daily routines and avoid associated complications. Second, LDL has been found to have an association with HbA1c and FPG and the LDL levels also increase as a person progresses in age. In a similar fashion, HDL  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l l l l l l l l l} \hline \hline \multicolumn{3}{c}{**LDL and HDL**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Hypertension**} & \multicolumn{3}{c}{**Age, Weight, and Height**} \\ \hline
**Feature 1** & **Feature 2** & **Corr** & **Feature 1** & **Feature 2** & **Corr** & **Feature 1** & **Feature 2** & **Corr** \\ \hline LDL & HbA1c & \(-\)0.19 & HTN=Yes & Age & 0.17 & Age & LDL & 0.15 \\ \hline LDL & FPG & \(-\)0.11 & HTN=Yes & PAL=L & 0.22 & Age & PAL=L & 0.29 \\ \hline LDL & PAL=L & 0.12 & HTN=No & PAL=M & 0.21 & Weight & PAL=L & 0.52 \\ \hline HDL & PAL=H & 0.21 & HTN=Yes & HbA1c & 0.12 & Weight & PAL=H & \(-\)0.29 \\ \hline HDL & FPG & \(-\)0.14 & HTN=Yes & FPG & 0.13 & Weight & Gender=M & 0.22 \\ \hline HDL & HbA1c & \(-\)0.01 & & & & Height & HbA1c & \(-\)0.12 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 4: Correlation between various features after ranking.  
levels are associated with FPG. Thus, it is important that people perform regular LDL/HDL tests and to control their levels in case it increases with time.  
In our current work, we only had access to the hypertension feature of a patient as being Yes or No. However in practice, the patient's blood pressure is recorded as diastolic and systolic values. Similarly, temperature, vision, waist size, etc. are some other features that can be recorded with commonly available instruments in every clinic. Thus, just like age and weight play an indirect role in diabetes prediction, these and other features may also play a certain role in diabetes prediction and should be recorded for each patient to improve the diagnostic process. Finally, the government could enforce the pre-screening of diabetes based on age, weight, physical activity levels, and the presence of hypertension. These factors do not require any specialized tests or equipment and can be checked in any clinic, even in rural areas. By controlling these basic factors, a large segment of the population can be averted from developing early diabetes, a problem that has a large economic and social burden in many countries including Saudi Arabia. It is also important that accurate recording of physiological data should be enforced by hospitals and local clinics for any visiting patients for better opportunities to diagnose patients-at-risk. The data should be recorded in the patient's EHR so it can be used via a similar analysis on a larger scale to produce better analysis in the future.