Screening and Diagnosis: There is an opportunity to reduce the number of people who would develop prediabetes or diabetes by offering straightforward screening tests to people with known risk factors (overweight, inactivity, hypertension, abnormal blood lipid levels, cardiovascular disease, family history and belonging to a high-risk ethnic population). This is an important first step toward health, building on the important initiatives now taking place in some Emirates. Intervention and Prevention: Enabling and encouraging people to make better lifestyle decisions about diet and exercise directly address the principal risk factors of obesity and inactivity. Intervention studies of people with prediabetes in China, Finland, India, Sweden and the United States have uniformly shown reductions in the progression to type 2 diabetes. Disease Management and Control: People with type 2 diabetes who actively manage their condition can more readily avoid the devastating complications related to the disease. This entails careful monitoring of blood sugar levels, taking any prescribed medications as instructed, maintaining weight loss, and increasing the use of self-care measures such as daily foot inspection, and regular eye and dental examinations.
The best hope of turning the tide on the evolving diabetes crisis in the UAE is by establishing community-based initiatives in collaboration with government public health agencies, nonprofit organizations and the private sector that can help to build public awareness about diabetes and its risk factors and modernize health care systems' ability to use sophisticated data analytics, new technology, and innovative care models that engage consumers in new ways.
UnitedHealth Group is widely recognized as a pioneer in developing innovative new care models for preventing and treating diabetes, in partnership with patients, health professionals, community organizations and governments. FORTUNE magazine independently ranked UnitedHealth Group No. 1 in its industry for innovation in 2010. The company was also recognized by The Wall Street Journal's 2010 Technology Innovation Awards.
SOURCE UnitedHealth Group