a rapid test available in pharmacies to find out if you have diabetes (this week only)

Information that has gone somewhat unnoticed. More than 4 million French people are diabetic, 90% of whom have type 2 diabetes. According to specialists, this figure is underestimated and nearly a million people suffer from it without knowing it. As part of National Diabetes Prevention Week which takes place until Saturday June 8 in France, people at risk of diabetes can be tested for diabetes in pharmacies, as relayed by Le Quotidien du Pharmacien. Community pharmacists can do a so-called “TROD” test (the acronym for “rapid diagnostic orientation test”). This is a hair test that allows you to assess blood sugar levels in 15 minutes. Authorized in pharmacies since 2016, the TROD diabetes test remains little known and little relayed on sites and federations dedicated to diabetics.

This test does not replace the diagnosis made by means of a medical biology examination. In other words, in the presence of hyperglycemia (too high a sugar level in the blood), the pharmacist must refer the patient (with their agreement) to the attending physician so that he can prescribe blood tests to validate or not the diagnostic. The objective of this test is clear: to detect people who, in an apparently healthy population, are at higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes so that early treatment can be implemented, reducing hence the incidence and mortality of this disease.

The TROD diabetes test can be carried out with or without a medical prescription and consists of taking a drop of blood from the finger. Like all “TROD” tests, it is 70% covered by Health Insurance (the remaining 30% can be covered by your mutual insurance company). The TROD diabetes test can only be carried out as part of the diabetes prevention campaign and not all year round, underlines the Order of Pharmacists.

Likewise, it is not accessible to everyone. Only people deemed “at risk” for type 2 diabetes can benefit from this test. To assess this risk, the pharmacist offers the Findrisc test, recommended by the High Authority of Health and consisting of a series of 8 questions relating in particular to age, heredity, waist size, practice of an activity physical activity, consumption of fruits and vegetables, hypertension. Each person can do this before going to the pharmacy. The answers to the questions give a number of points to determine the risk of having diabetes within 10 years. A treating physician can also send his patient deemed to be at risk of diabetes to have a TROD test in a pharmacy.