The clinical utility of the AUSDRISK tool in assessing change in type 2 diabetes risk in overweight/obese volunteers undertaking a healthy lifestyle intervention

The objective of this study was to assess the clinical utility of the AUSDRISK tool for determining risk of Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). In this secondary analysis from the HealthTrack study, the AUSDRISK tool was applied to data from overweight/obese volunteers completing a lifestyle intervention trial. Participants were volunteer residents of the Illawarra region recruited in 2014-2015. From 377 trial participants (BMI 25-40 kg/m2, 25-54 yr), 161 provided data required for measurement of AUSDRISK, collected at 0 and 12 months. They had been randomised to one of two lifestyle interventions (±a healthy food sample, 30 g walnuts/day, I and IW) delivered by dietitians, or a control intervention (C) delivered by nurse practitioners. HbA1c measures were considered for comparison. At baseline the AUSDRISK score indicated n = 83 (51.5%) were at high risk of T2DM within 5 years (≥12 points). After 12 months the proportion scored as high risk significantly decreased in the IW group (51.5% vs 33.3%; p = 0.005), but not I (51.2% vs 39.0%; p = 0.063) or C group (51.9% vs 38.9%; p = 0.065). By comparison, HbA1c measures indicated high risk in n = 24 (17%) of 139 participants at baseline and borderline non-significant changes over time in the randomised groups. In conclusion, the AUSDRISK tool has reasonable clinical utility in identifying T2DM risk in clinical samples of overweight/obese individuals.