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As part of National Diabetes Month, we have been reporting the role that workplace wellness can play in helping employees manage diabetes, as well as the American Diabetes Association's call for people to “get up and move.” We've also outlined some of the costs associated with diabetes.

Now, The Tennessean points out another important fact about diabetes: “Early detection is key to maintaining health.”

They spoke with an endocrinologist who “typically sees diabetes patients after they have been diagnosed by their primary care physician and need help managing the disease.”

Said Endocrinologist Megan McCauley: “If you can catch it early, then diet and exercise can do a lot to either stave it off if you are prediabetic, or if you've recently developed diabetes then diet and exercise changes can make a significant difference. Even for people who've had diabetes for 50 years, diet and exercise are still a really big portion of contributing to their diabetes control, along with their other medications.”

Indeed, the journal Diabetes Care recently published a study titled “Early Detection and Treatment of Type 2 Diabetes Reduce Cardiovascular Morbidity and Mortality: A Simulation of the Results of the Anglo-Danish-Dutch Study of Intensive Treatment in People With Screen-Detected Diabetes in Primary Care.”

Its conclusion: “Major benefits are likely to accrue from the early diagnosis and treatment of glycemia and cardiovascular risk factors in type 2 diabetes. The intensity of glucose, blood pressure, and cholesterol treatment after diagnosis is less important than the time of its initiation. Screening for type 2 diabetes to reduce the lead time between diabetes onset and clinical diagnosis and to allow for prompt multifactorial treatment is warranted.”