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New research, published online this February in the American Journal of Public Health, has revealed that screening patients for high glycemic levels through oral blood collected during a routine dental procedure gives just as accurate a reading in HbA1c as traditional finger-stick readings, and can even identify a large number of patients who don’t yet know that they have diabetes. According to the lead author of the study, Dr. Shiela Stauss, there are over 8 million adults in the US alone who have diabetes but aren’t yet diagnosed. While there are other places that offer diabetes screening, such as churches, ophthalmology offices and health fairs, the dental office offers a particularly good place, since it’s possible to collect blood from the gums that can be used for accurate diabetes screening.
Since an average of 70% of Americans seek some kind of dental care at least once a year, diabetes screening at the dentist could be very successful. Only about one in ten people with prediabetes know it, and around one quarter to one third of diabetics are undiagnosed, so it’s important to increase awareness and get people diagnosed.
The study recruited adult patients from NYU’s College of Dentistry who had indicated that their gums bled while brushing or flossing their teeth or were told by a healthcare provider that they had diabetes or were at risk of developing it. The 408 people who participate all had paired HbA1c values from a finger-stick blood sample, as well as a gingival crevicular blood (GCB) specimen taken from the gums while seated in the dental chair. HbA1c values assessed with finger-stick blood and GCB were nearly identical, with a correlation of .991. Finger-stick blood HbA1c ranged from 4.2% to 10.8%, while GCB HbA1c ranged from 4.1% to 10.9%. Regardless of the blood source analyzed, around half of the study sample had HbA1c levels in the prediabetes range.
Jude Fabiano DDS http://ift.tt/1Gv7FhN
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