Roughly 29 million people in the United States have various levels of diabetes. For many years, doctors called them “diabetics.” They called themselves “diabetic.” But are they, really, “diabetics?”
Not anymore, says the nation’s leading advocacy for people with the disease, the American Diabetes Association. The organization recently released its revised 2016 version of “Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes,” the annual document that is the gold standard for understanding the disease.
The ADA’s Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes “is intended to provide clinicians, patients, researchers, payers, and other interested individuals with the components of diabetes care, general treatment goals, and tools to evaluate the quality of care,” it reads.
Among the revisions made to the newest version of the document: “Diabetic” to refer to someone with the disease is no longer acceptable. It may sound like a semantic argument, but it’s one worth making, according to the ADA doctors.
“The American Diabetes Association’s (ADA’s) position is that diabetes does not define people,” reads a summary of the revisions. In short, patients have diabetes, the ADA goes on to explain. The use of the word as a noun ties them to a disease and stigma that, with care, can be treated. The effects can be lessened. They are not doomed to be diabetes patients for life.
That wasn’t the only major change advocated by the ADA in its update. The group also stressed the importance of different forms of diagnostic testing.
“The order and discussion of diagnostic tests (fasting plasma glucose, 2-h plasma glucose after a 75g oral glucose tolerance test, and [HbA1c] criteria) were revised to make it clear that no one test is preferred over another for diagnosis,” reads the document.
The updated “Standards” also spends a great deal of time on diabetes issues that sometimes are forgotten, like mental health problems associated with the disease. According to a growing number of studies, there is a greater risk of mental disorders with diabetes patients.
Diabetes sufferers are almost twice as likely to develop severe mental disorders – including bipolar disorder, depression and schizophrenia – than non-diabetic patients, the ADA says.
Depression, especially, has been eyed by health professionals as a secondary danger of diabetes for years. Not only are the rigors of managing diabetes stressful, possibly leading to symptoms of depression, but the disease can cause physical problems that can worsen the symptoms of depression.
Sleep loss and loss of appetite due to depression hardly help a patient’s fight against diabetes, while depression can also lead to poor lifestyle decisions (think: less exercise, smoking or weight gain) that exacerbate diabetic issues.
The best course of action for patients and their doctors is not to ignore even the earliest signs of a problem, the ADA says.
“It is preferable to incorporate psychological assessment and treatment into routine care rather than waiting for a specific problem or deterioration in metabolic or psychological status,” says the group.
