Men's Undiagnosed Diabetes Down

Undiagnosed diabetes may not be as widespread a problem as
it used to be among U.S. men, according to a new study.

The study comes from James P. Smith, PhD, of the Rand Corp. in Santa Monica,
Calif.

"Undiagnosed diabetes remains an important health problem, but much less
so than 25 years ago," Smith writes in today's edition of the journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Smith reviewed diabetes data from U.S. men aged 25-70 who participated in
government health surveys conducted from 1976 to 2002. The men provided blood
samples, got checkups, and were asked if they had ever been diagnosed with
diabetes.

In the earliest surveys -- which were conducted in the late 1970s -- nearly
half of men with diabetes didn't know they had diabetes. That is, their blood
tests showed that they had diabetes, but they didn't report ever being
diagnosed with diabetes.

In the most recent surveys -- which were conducted from 1999 to 2002 -- a
fifth of the men with diabetes didn't know they had diabetes.

Smith also found that as the years passed, the race gap in undiagnosed
diabetes faded.

In the late 1970s, African-American and Hispanic men were more likely than
white men to have undiagnosed diabetes. By 2002, that difference had
disappeared.

However, an education gap replaced the race gap in undiagnosed diabetes. Men
who hadn't finished high school are more likely than men with higher education
levels to have undiagnosed diabetes.

"These improvements in eliminating undiagnosed diabetes appear to be
larger among the more educated and to a lesser extent those with the most
income," writes Smith.

His study also shows that obese men -- who are more likely to develop type 2
diabetes than leaner men -- are more likely than leaner men to have undiagnosed
diabetes. The reason for that isn't clear from Smith's report.

"If we only target disparities by race and ethnicity, we run the risk of
missing other equally important health disparities that affect those least able
to deal with them," states Smith in a Rand news release.

The study doesn't break down undiagnosed cases of type 1 diabetes and type 2
diabetes. However, type 2 diabetes is the most common type of diabetes among
adults.

By Miranda Hitti
Reviewed by Louise Chang
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