I’m against overdiagnosis, overcooked food, and over long films, said David Haslam, chair of\u00a0the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.<\/p>\n
All of us probably agree\u2014especially when it comes to\u00a0overcooked food\u2014which is part of the problem.<\/p>\n
At the Preventing Overdiagnosis conference<\/a> in Oxford, the big topics are diabetes, hypertension, and statins. Lifestyle diseases that we are regularly treating, with the aim of reducing incidence, even where treatment\u00a0will make very little difference to individual patients.<\/p>\n Two recent articles in The BMJ<\/em> have tackled these big topics: Stephen Martin<\/a> et al looked at\u00a0mild hypertension<\/a>, and John Yudkin<\/a> and Victor Montori considered pre-diabetes<\/a>. Both talked about how tinkering with the thresholds for diagnosis, and extrapolating treatment efficacy from more severe cases, has led to a massive expansion in the number of patients being medicalised.<\/p>\n