A new article joins our growing library of publications. The article documents one of our Diabetes research project
in a paper titled "Acanthosis Nigricans
and Diabetes Risk Factors: Prevalence in Young Persons Seen in Southwestern US Primary Care Practices". (PDF) These insights are published in the
May / June 2007 Issue of the Annals of Family Medicine.
There are alarming, if not surprising, rates of risk of diabetes in the young persons in our practices. Even among children 7-11 years old, the rate of Acanthosis
Nigricans, a condition known to be associated in many cases with hyperinsulinemia and thought to be an antecedent of diabetes, is a startling 19%! These data
present an ominous picture of the likely prevalence of diabetes in NM in the coming decades.
"We are also in the early stages of projects to explore relationships of acanthosis nigricans to metabolic markers of diabetes risk in our patients, and how presence of acanthosis may influence diabetes prevention counseling. Both of these latter projects aim to understand how acanthosis may be useful in primary care to help reduce rates of development of diabetes."
