One out of two Asian-Americans with diabetes are undiagnosed: NIH

A new study has revealed that more than half of Asian-Americans with diabetes are undiagnosed.

In the study, using newly available 2011-2012 data from the CDC's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, National Institutes of Health researchers were able to quantify diabetes prevalence for Asian Americans for the first time and found that they have the highest proportion of diabetes that was undiagnosed among all ethnic and racial subgroups studied at 51 percent.

Diabetes was also common in Asian Americans at 21 percent. Hispanic Americans had the highest prevalence of diabetes at nearly 23 percent, with 49 percent of that undiagnosed.

One difference between Asian Americans and the other groups studied is that Asian Americans often develop type 2 diabetes at a lower body mass index (BMI).

Author Andy Menke said they were able to identify with hard data a problem that had not been well-studied in the past and added that the Asian population was diverse and they do not yet have data on differences within that population.

According to the study, about one in five non-Hispanic black adults had diabetes, higher than the overall population, but had a lower proportion of diabetes that was undiagnosed than the Asian or Hispanic subgroups with about 37 percent being undiagnosed.

Whereas, non-Hispanic whites had the lowest prevalence of diabetes at 11 percent and they had the lowest proportion of undiagnosed at just over 32 percent.

The study is published in the Journal JAMA.