November - 5 - 2009
Many patients and physicians expect that genetic testing can help motivate patients to make lifestyle changes to prevent type 2 diabetes, according to a U.S. survey. The survey involved 304 U.S. primary care physicians and endocrinologists, 152 primary care patients without diabetes, and 89 patients enrolled in a diabetes pharmacogenetics study. About 80 percent of both physicians and patients without diabetes indicated that they would be somewhat or very likely to order genetic testing for diabetes risk prediction. More patients than physicians said that a "high risk" result would very likely motivate them to make lifestyle changes to prevent type 2 diabetes. About 39 percent of physicians said they would be somewhat or very likely to order genetic testing before there is published evidence of its clinical efficacy. "Despite the paucity of current data, physicians and patients reported high expectations that genetic testing would improve patient motivation to adopt key behaviors for the prevention or control of type 2 diabetes," the researchers said. "This suggests the testable hypothesis that 'genetic' risk information might have greater value to motivate behavior change compared with standard risk information."