How often should older adults be checked for diabetes?

Age is a major risk factor for diabetes, so it's important to get screened frequently as you get older. If you have additonal diabetes risk factors, you should get screened every year. Learn more from endocrinologist Jack Merendino, MD.

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There is some controversy about how frequently older individuals should be checked for diabetes but we have to remember that age

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is one of the major risk factors for diabetes. As we get older the likelihood of diabetes is much greater, for example, if you

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look at the general population in the United States the general prevalence of type two diabetes is thought to be around 9% of

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the population. But if you are talking about people over 65 it's fully a quarter of the population. One out of four people have

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diabetes. So probably. it's reasonable to check people quite frequently, certainly if they have other risk factors like being over weight

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or having a family history. I think they should be checked every year either by a fasting blood sugar test or by a haemoglobin A1C

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test and pretty much anybody over that age I think every three years or so is reasonable