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Screening Tests for Type 2 Diabetes

Screening for type 2 diabetes may prevent the disease from becoming full blown. Currently, there are no clear-cut guidelines for screening people for type 2 diabetes, but it is recommended that people over age 45 be screened regularly. People with risk factors for type 2 diabetes should also be screened no matter what their age, including people who are overweight, those with a history of diabetes in the family and people with certain medical conditions such as high blood pressure.

  1. Significance

    • Catching diabetes at early onset can mean the difference between living a normal life with good blood sugar control and living with diabetes that is out of control. Diabetes does not provide warning symptoms and often people with the disease do not know they have it until it causes a health issue such as stroke or high blood pressure. Screening tests are relatively painless and take only a few hours.

    Types

    • There are two basic types of screening tests used to detect type 2 diabetes: fasting plasma glucose, or FPG, and oral glucose tolerance test, or OGTT. The FPG is the most widely used screening test for type 2 diabetes, but because the results sometimes indicate a tendency toward diabetes when there is not one, it is recommended to follow up a positive test with an oral glucose tolerance test for best results.

    Fasting Plasma Glucose Screening Test

    • Preparation for the FPG test includes eight hours of fasting. When the patient arrives for the test, the nurse will draw blood from a vein in the arm. Alternatively, the nurse may ask the patient to produce a urine specimen. The patient's health care provider sends the blood or urine sample to a lab, which will process it and send the results back to the health care provider. Usually, the lab processes the test results in about 24 to 48 hours.

    Oral Glucose Tolerance Test

    • Patients must fast for eight hours for this screening test. After the patient arrives at the doctor's office, the nurse or attendant will take a fasting blood sugar reading. Then the patient will drink a glucose solution. After two hours, the nurse takes a blood sugar reading again. The results of this test are immediately accessible---there is no need to wait for lab results.

    Results

    • People without diabetes will return a reading of 100 mg/dl or less for the fasting plasma glucose test. Results between 100 and 125 indicate prediabetes. The health care provider makes a diagnosis of diabetes if the result is greater than 126. Results of the oral glucose tolerance test for people without diabetes will come back under 140 mg/dl. Prediabetes levels are between 140 and 199. The health care provider returns a diagnosis of diabetes if the result is more than 200 mg/dl.

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