If the US wants to slow the spread of diabetes, it should think about coming up with a diabetes prevention program, say researchers who have been assessing the likely benefits of that approach. They predict that such a prevention program, provided to American adults with prediabetes at age fifty cold significantly reduce the diabetes problem.

A successful prevention program would provide "lifestyle interventions" (yikes, would not want to be on the receiving end of that) to push weight loss and exercise.

It makes financial sense, says Tom Hoerger, a health economics researcher. The cost of such a program would greatly reduce the money spent by insurance companies and Medicare on diabetes treatment. And, of course, it would greatly reduce human suffering also.

The results of the study that evaluated this approach was published in Diabetes Care (June 2006). In that article, the researchers predict that diabetes prevention, if made available to Americans with prediabetes at age fifty, could in theory reduce diabetes onset by age sixty-five by thirty-seven percent.