Vic: New study to find undiagnosed diabetes sufferers

AAP General News (Australia)
04-20-1999
Vic: New study to find undiagnosed diabetes sufferers

By Heather Gallagher

MELBOURNE, April 20 AAP - Thousands of people across several states will be blood-tested as
part of a new study designed to find an estimated 350,000 Australians who have undiagnosed
diabetes, federal Health Minister Michael Wooldridge said today.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has been commissioned to select a random sample of 9000
Australians from Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia and Tasmania to participate in
the landmark study.

"This will give us information we don't have at the moment and will enable us to better
target the 350,000 Australians who've got diabetes who are out there, who don't know about it,"

Dr Wooldridge said at the International Diabetes Institute in south suburban Caulfield today.

"It will help us to get them to get treatment."

The study is being funded by the federal government in partnership with a number of large
pharmaceutical companies.

Type 1 diabetes, also known as juvenile diabetes, is usually easy to diagnose among young
people suffering from a deficiency of sugar in the blood.

But it is Type 2 diabetes, which has less dramatic symptoms but can be a precursor to or
indicator of other more serious health problems, such as heart or kidney malfunctions, that
often remains undiagnosed.

Professor Timothy Welborn, from Sir Charles Gairdner (Gairdner) Hospital in Perth, said
risk factors include being aged over 50, having a family history of diabetes, being obese and,
in the case of women, suffering from diabetes during pregnancy.

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KEYWORD: DIABETES

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