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Introduction to diabetes
Types of diabetes
Diagnosis
Risk factors & screening

Risk factors and screening of diabetes

• Are you at risk of developing Type 2 diabetes?
• Other lifestyle factors that may influence the risk of developing diabetes:
     Coffee consumption
     Sleep duration
     Sugar intake
• Who should be screened?

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Are you at risk of developing Type 2 diabetes?

Diabetes mellitus is a complex disorder of metabolism involving both genetic and environmental factors, plus some unknown factors. Therefore there are certain factors in your life that may put you at greater risk of getting diabetes.

Obesity (especially abdominal fatness), sedentary lifestyle, high calorie intake, over age 45 years, certain ethnic groups, etc, all have been known to increase the risk of developing diabetes.

Family history of diabetes has also been associated with increased risk. There is a 7 – 14% lifetime risk of developing diabetes if one parent has diabetes. The risk increases to 50% if both parents have diabetes.

Other lifestyle factors that may influence the risk of developing diabetes

Coffee consumption
Coffee consumption with an average of 2.8 cups/day reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes by 64% compared with those who do not drink coffee. This is the result of a large prospective study reported in November 2006 issue of Diabetes Care. The study involved 593 subjects with normal blood glucose and 317 subjects with impaired glucose tolerance (pre-diabetes) from a community in the Southern California and had an average follow up of 8 years.

Other studies in Europe and US also demonstrated that high habitual coffee consumption (2 or more cups of coffee per day) is associated with lower risk of type 2 diabetes, irrespective of whether the coffee is caffeinated or decaffeinated, filtered or instant. This does not mean that people with diabetes can consume excessive amount of caffeine.

Sleep duration
In an observational study, the result showed that short (≤5 hours) and long (>8 hours) sleep durations is associated with increased risk of developing diabetes.

Sugar intake
Lifelong sugar intake does not appear to influence the risk of developing diabetes.

Who should be screened?

Any person with symptoms of high blood sugar (unexplained weight loss, tiredness, thirst, frequent urination, blurred vision, itching and skin infection, etc).

No symptoms but with any one of the following features:

• Age 35 years or older
• Overweight (Body Mass Index >25 kg/m2)
• Family history of diabetes mellitus ( 1st degree relatives)
• History of diabetes in pregnancy (gestational diabetes mellitus)
• History of big baby (Birth Weight >4.0kg)
• High blood pressure >140/90 mmHg
• Fasting triglyceride level >1.7 mmol/l (150 mg/dl)
• HDL cholesterol <0.9 mmol/l (35 mg/dl)

Pregnant women should be screened at least once at over 24week period of gestation.