Calculate Your Risk of Diabetes Type 2

Have you been reading all the announcements and updates about the diabetes type 2 epidemic and started to wonder just what your own risk may be?

Well a group of British scientists have now devised an online tool for calculating your risk of developing diabetes type 2.

QDScore Results

The research was based on the medical records of more than 2.5 million people, who did not have diabetes to begin with, over a 15 year period. The researchers were able to identify nine significant risk facytors, viz; age, ethnicity, body mass index, smoking status, socioeconomic level, family history of diabetes, diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, hypertension and use of steroid drugs.

They were able to attach a relative importance or weighting to each of these factors and incorporate them into a formula or algorithm that is able to predict the risk of Type 2 diabetes for a 10-year projection.

Living with Type II Diabetes?

There is an interactive Web version of the algorithm available at www.qdscore.org. Dr. Julia Hippisley-Cox, the lead author, said that although two of its features – postal code and ethnicity – were specific to Great Britain, the algorithm will still "give you a fairly accurate notion anyway," even without specifying those two factors.

Dr. Hippisley-Cox, who is a professor of epidemiology at Nottingham University, also stated that those people who find they have a high risk, should make weight loss and exercise essential. "Those are the interventions that have been tested," she said. "If you play around with the obesity measure, you can see how your risk will change if you lose weight."

Whilst QDScore is intended for use in the UK, it has not been accepted as yet for clinical use. All medical decisions need to be taken by a patient in consultation with their doctor. The authors and the sponsors accept no responsibility for clinical use or misuse of this score.