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0:00
This is Dr. Mayer B. Davidson.
I am a Professor of Medicine at
the Charles R. Drew University
and the David Geffen
School of Medicine at UCLA.
And today I will be talking
to you about the evolution
of the diagnostic
criteria for diabetes.
0:20
To make sure that
we're on the same page,
I first will give you a
description of diabetes.
It's a metabolic disorder,
which is characterized by having
elevated blood
glucose, and you often
hear the term blood sugar levels.
Associated with this are small
blood vessel complications.
And these complications affect
the eyes, and the kidneys,
and the peripheral nerves.
In addition, there are complications
affecting the large blood vessels.
And they cause heart
attacks, strokes,
and peripheral arterial disease--
That is the vessels that go
into the legs often get clogged.
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Usually, people with diabetes
have no symptoms of it.
The exceptions are that if
the blood sugar is very high
they will have increased
urination and increased thirst,
and maybe even some
blurring of vision.
Also, if they have the advanced
complications that I mentioned
on the previous
slide, they will have
the symptoms of those complications.
But since most people
don't have symptoms,
the first and important
step in diagnosing diabetes
is to screen for it in
people at high risk.
Some examples of those individuals
are those who are obese,
those who have a positive family
history in first degree relatives--
That is people whose parents have
diabetes, whose brothers or sisters
have diabetes, or
children have diabetes--
this is in type 2 diabetes
we're talking about here--
and those who have
high blood pressure.
