Diabetes Potpourri: Nomenclature and Glycemia

Abstract

My local Sunday newspaper recently featured a section called “Total Health,” which included 16 pages of health and lifestyle advice, including information on nutrition and physical activity, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. It encouraged readers to attend an upcoming local health fair, at which they could get more health-related information and undergo screening of blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose, and BMI. I thought the newspaper section and the planned program for the fair were well-conceived. One article on the importance of cardiovascular risk and disease prevention appropriately emphasized the goals of blood pressure, cholesterol, and weight control in the total management of type 2 diabetes. Detracting from the substance of the article, however, were many references to individuals with diabetes as “diabetics.” We should avoid using this terminology, as it inappropriately dehumanizes the people to whom it refers. “Diabetic” is an adjective, not a noun. It refers to a disease, not a person. We don’t use the terms “hypercholesterolemics” or “cardiacs” so why “diabetics”? The …