Metabolism: clinical and experimental
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Comparative Study
Body surface area in normal-weight, overweight, and obese adults. A comparison study.
Values for body surface area (BSA) are commonly used in medicine, particularly to calculate doses of chemotherapeutic agents and index cardiac output. Various BSA formulas have been developed over the years. The DuBois and DuBois (Arch Intern Med 1916;17:863-71) BSA equation is the most widely used, although derived from only 9 subjects. ⋯ Body surface area prediction with the commonly used DuBois formula underestimated BSA in obese patients by as much as 3% (male) to 5% (female). Based on the formula of Yu et al, however, BSA is overestimated when these traditional formulas are used. Although Mosteller's formula is recommended based on its simplicity and suitability for laboratory and clinical work in adults, accuracy studies in whites with 3-dimensional one-pass whole-body scanning are needed.
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Treatment of prediabetes attenuates progression to type 2 diabetes mellitus. The American Diabetes Association (ADA) previously defined prediabetes as either impaired fasting glucose (IFG) = 6.1 to 6.9 mmol/L (110-125 mg/dL) and/or impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) (2-hour postload glucose of 7.8-11.0 mmol/L [140-199 mg/dL]). For practical reasons, fasting plasma glucose (FPG) is commonly used for diabetes screening. ⋯ However, this lower IFG threshold increased prediabetes prevalence in the overall cohort from 20.4% to 31.9%. In conclusion, in young adult African Americans, an ethnic group at high risk for developing diabetes, FPG testing alone may be inadequate for diagnosing prediabetes. Until alternative strategies are identified, an OGTT is presently the best method for detecting the prediabetic condition in these high-risk patients.