Diabetes tests urged for all

New national health guidelines will recommend all middle-aged adults be tested for diabetes, the chairman of the cardiovascular guidelines committee says.

The guidelines, to be announced by Health Minister Annette King on December 8, would strongly recommend men be tested from the age of 45 and women from 55, University of Otago professor of nutrition Jim Mann said.

The guidelines would also recommend anybody at risk of developing diabetes, or who was Maori or Pasifika, be tested 10 years earlier.

International research indicated about half the people with diabetes did not know they had the disease, Professor Mann said.

The approach the guidelines recommended doctors use for assessing patients' risk of heart problems was believed to be a world-first, he said.

Instead of assessing the risk based on cholesterol (blood fats) levels alone, the guidelines recommended doctors perform the range of tests so they could examine most risk factors together, including triglycerides (blood fats), diabetes and smoking.

Doctors could use those to determine the overall chances of the patient having a heart attack then plan a holistic approach to reducing the risk.

Researchers also wanted to know exactly how many people in New Zealand had diabetes, Professor Mann said.

Dunedin's Edgar National Diabetes Research Centre had started planning to co-ordinate the project, which Professor Mann hoped could be carried out in 2005.

- NZPA