The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has recommended blood sugar testing for all overweight adults belonging to the age group of 40 years to 70 years even if they don’t have diabetes.

The Task Force said that adults with high blood sugar, but not diabetes, must be sent for intensive behavioral counseling for the promotion of a healthy diet and exercise that could delay or prevent the disease.

The government-backed USPSTF in 2008 endorsed diabetes screening for those individuals, who have high blood pressure, but it failed to find sufficient evidence in the support of the same screening for the people, who are overweight, but show no symptoms of diabetes.

The authors of the new recommendation published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, said that since then, six studies have discovered that changes in lifestyle to prevent or delay diabetes are consistently beneficial.

The USPSTF states that this recommendation was not intended to negate tailoring medicine to individual patients, but rather serves as a summation of the evidence supporting the use of proactive screening and referral for behavioral intervention in this population.

For patients who show normal glucose levels, rescreening every 3 years was recommended. However, the USPSTF did say that the evidence on optimal screening intervals after initial normal results was limited.

In the event of abnormal test results, the USPSTF recommendation for behavioral intervention in the form of combined dietary and physical activity counseling suggested multiple contacts over extended periods; and that there was insufficient evidence to support the use of medication over behavioral interventions.

There are a large number of adults who are recommended to have screening at a younger age for diabetes based on their race or ethnicity, family history, or clinical history, Laiteerapong said. "The American Diabetes Association has recommended this for years, and it is excellent that the USPSTF is now including these populations in their recommendations."

In 2008, the government-backed USPSTF endorsed diabetes screening for people with high blood pressure but couldn’t find enough evidence to support the same screening for those who are overweight but with no symptoms of diabetes.

Since then, six studies found that lifestyle changes to prevent or delay diabetes are consistently beneficial, say the authors of the new recommendation, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Task Force member Dr. Michael P. Pignone of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, said a test on a healthy person by a primary care physician can give both potentially beneficial and potentially harmful results.

In an email, Pignone told Reuters Health that this was the reason why it’s important to focus on screening tests that they know, on balance, are effective. According to Pignone, the Task Force has discovered that the screening of adults ages 40 to 70, who were overweight or obese, can detect individuals having abnormal blood glucose levels before it grows to diabetes. Pignone mentioned that intensive lifestyle interventions in their life can help prevent or delay complications from the disease.