STAT

Opinion: Why I’m worried about prediabetes

Most insurance plans cover nutrition counseling for people with diabetes but not for those with prediabetes, which doesn't make any sense. The bipartisan Preventing Diabetes in Medicare Act would fix…

There’s an epidemic of prediabetes in the United States: 84 million Americans have this condition but most don’t know it. Prediabetes puts an individual on track for developing full-blown diabetes in five years. Although simple strategies can derail that train, one of them — nutrition counseling — is missing.

I worry that without preventive efforts like counseling about nutrition and other lifestyle choices, many people will unnecessarily make the journey from prediabetes to diabetes. And that would be a shame.

Here’s the issue: While most insurance plans That flies in the face of research documenting that to halt the steady progression of prediabetes to diabetes and reduce the long-term costs associated with treating the complications like heart attacks and limb amputations that diabetes inflicts.

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