Thousands of women are not being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes as blood tests are geared towards men, study suggests
- Research shows that diabetes tests are calibrated to men’s blood sugar levels
- Nearly 35,000 women may have been wrongly told they do not have diabetes
- Changing the blood sugar threshold could increase diagnosis in women by 17% per year
Thousands of women may miss out on a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes after a study found that blood tests are biased towards men.
Scientists looked at the blood sugar levels of more than a million people in England and Wales who were tested for diabetes.
They found that women under the age of 50 had significantly lower blood sugar levels on average compared to men.
This suggests that women with diabetes would have lower blood counts than men with the disease. Therefore, almost 35,000 women under the age of 50 would test negative for diabetes even though they actually have the disease, the researchers estimate.
Changing the blood sugar test cutoff could increase the number of women diagnosed with type 2 diabetes by 17 percent per year. Dr. Adrian Heald, co-author of the study, said: ‘This research observed an intriguing phenomenon, but more research is needed.
Researchers estimate that nearly 35,000 women under the age of 50 have been incorrectly told they do not have diabetes
‘Rapidly diagnosing women with type 2 diabetes can help them take action on exercise and diet, or take medications such as metformin, to keep their blood sugar levels at healthy levels. This is important to prevent damage to blood vessels from diabetes, which can lead to heart attacks and strokes in the long term.”
A commonly used test to see if someone has diabetes is the HbA1c blood sugar test. This controls the level of glucose attached to blood molecules called hemoglobin.
But because younger women typically menstruate every month, they lose and replenish hemoglobin more quickly than men, potentially accumulating less glucose. The research, published in the journal Diabetes Therapy, suggests this could explain their lower blood sugar levels, which could lead to a missed diagnosis of diabetes.
Women can be diagnosed with diabetes up to ten years later. That means you’re missing out on years of health advice and medications, and you’re at greater risk of dying from diabetes complications like heart disease.
Dr. Lucy Chambers, from Diabetes UK, said: ‘Women are often diagnosed with type 2 diabetes later in life than men. This may be because some clinical criteria for diagnosis do not take into account differences between the sexes.’