Tackling overdiagnosis: Why GPs should define what constitutes disease
Experts argue specialist-driven definitions too often turn healthy people into patients
3rd May 2019
GPs rather than other specialists should be leading the expert panels tasked with defining diseases in order to tackle the growing menace of overdiagnosis.
The call has come from leading family doctors who point to conditions such as hypertension, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol and osteoporosis, saying they have been defined as diseases when they are no more than risk factors.
“Family or generalist doctors — who are currently underrepresented on panels that change disease definitions — witness daily how specialist-driven