Diabetics urged to ask for tests

WASHINGTON - There's grim news on the diabetes front: Nearly two-thirds of diabetics aren't properly controlling their blood sugar. And one in three older diabetics likely also has a serious leg disease that could cost their limb - or their life.

This year, specialists for the first time are urging every diabetic over age 50 to get tested for peripheral arterial disease, or PAD.

Testing is simple - just a check of blood pressure in the ankle. If it's significantly lower than blood pressure in the arm, PAD may be narrowing leg arteries and slowly choking off blood flow.

Severe PAD can lead to amputation. Worse, if your leg arteries are clogged and stiff, your heart arteries are too. Having PAD quadruples your risk of a heart attack or stroke, important to know so you can seek protective treatment.

Anybody can get PAD. At least 12-million Americans are thought to have it, most of them undiagnosed. But diabetes damages the blood vessels in ways that make patients especially susceptible to cardiovascular disease, meaning diabetics are most at risk, concludes an expert panel brought together by the American Diabetes Association.

Diabetics may have to ask for the PAD test, called an ankle brachial index. It's unlikely that primary care physicians have it on the list of tests for diabetics.

Another exam, the HbA1c check, given every three months, shows blood-sugar averages, the best measure of how well diabetes is controlled.

Just 37 percent of the nation's 18-million diabetics have optimal control, an HbA1c level below 7, says the government's new National Healthcare Quality Report.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times 490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 Contact the Times | Privacy Policy Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright