CDC launches campaign encouraging Americans to detect and reverse prediabetes
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is launching a new advertising campaign aimed at raising awareness about prediabetes and encouraging early testing to help prevent or delay Type 2 diabetes.
The campaign, called "Undo It," began airing Tuesday with a message that prediabetes does not have to lead to a Type 2 diabetes diagnosis.
"You can't undo everything in life, but you can undo prediabetes," the campaign states.
CDC officials say one of the biggest challenges is that many people with prediabetes do not know they have it.
"Many of them don't know they have it. Over 80 percent don't know they have it because it's largely asymptomatic," said Dr. Christopher Holliday, director of the Division of Diabetes Translation.
Holliday said the lack of symptoms can prevent people from seeking testing and treatment.
The agency's new "Undo It" campaign urges people to learn their risk for prediabetes, a condition in which blood sugar levels are higher than normal but not high enough for a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes. According to the campaign, 2 in 5 American adults have prediabetes.
Holliday said the CDC is encouraging people to take a one-minute online risk test to assess their likelihood of having the condition.
"The call to action is for them to talk with their doctor and get a confirmatory blood test that will definitively show whether or not they have prediabetes, and then they can take action by making modest lifestyle changes that will help reverse prediabetes," Holliday said.
Those lifestyle changes include making healthier food choices, increasing physical activity and losing a small amount of weight to help lower the risk.
The CDC says early detection can give people an opportunity to stop or delay the onset of Type 2 diabetes through testing and lifestyle changes. Take The Prediabetes Risk Test | Do I Have Prediabetes?
