In medicine, prevention is usually an unalloyed good. But in this case, other diabetes specialists argue, medical and epidemiological data give weak support, at most, for increasingly dire prediabetes admonitions. … The World Health Organization … and other medical authorities have rejected prediabetes as a diagnostic category because they are not convinced that it routinely leads to diabetes or that existing treatments do much good. John Yudkin, a diabetes researcher and emeritus professor of medicine at University College London, describes the ominous warnings about prediabetes from ADA and CDC as “scaremongering.”
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Yet ADA, a nonprofit that funds research, issues treatment standards, and raises public awareness, has gradually broadened its definition of prediabetes to encompass more people.
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The push to diagnose and treat prediabetes has come at a cost. … ADA, CDC, and other groups have spent billions of dollars on research, education, and health improvement programs—generally focused on weight loss and exercise—that have generated lackluster results, according to critics.
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The push for drug treatments for prediabetes takes place in an environment rife with financial conflicts of interest. For years, ethicists have criticized ADA for financial dependence on diabetes drugmakers.
Read full, original post: The war on ‘prediabetes’ could be a boon for pharma—but is it good medicine?
