Diabetes is reaching epidemic proportions in Africa. In fact, Africa is experiencing the most rapid increase in the prevalence of type 2 diabetes (T2D) in the world and has the highest proportion of people living with diabetes who are undiagnosed. To address this epidemic and prevent complications, as well as co-morbidities and mortalities, including enhanced susceptibility and mortality from COVID-19 and malaria, it is essential that undiagnosed diabetes be converted to diagnosed diabetes and treatment begun. Early diagnosis of diabetes has been posited as essential for reducing the debilitating effects of the disease. Identifying cost-effective tools that could convert undiagnosed diabetes to diabetes and developing effective treatment modalities requires both clinical research and clinical care and should be taken up across many African countries in both rural and urban areas. Research has shown the possibility of diabetes remission in developed countries through lifestyle changes. He is currently conducting a cohort study in Ghana as a pilot for further studies in sub-Saharan Africa on the possibility of people newly diagnosed with T2D reverting to prediabetes (PreDM) or normal glucose tolerance through lifestyle interventions. 
While studying for his PhD in Health Promotion at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Ghana, Thomas Hormenu was worried that despite health promotion interventions leveraged by successive governments, there was still an increasing incidence of non-communicable diseases in young adults; hence, his PhD research was focused on establishing baseline information in Ghana on factors influencing health behaviours among adolescents. He chose adolescents because it is a critical period for the transition between childhood and adulthood and also a period where behaviours are formulated and established. He found a high prevalence of unhealthy dietary practises, physical inactivity, and substance abuse (alcohol and marijuana usage) among in-school adolescents.
Dr. Hormenu was then awarded a postdoctoral fellowship in 2018 from the African Postdoctoral Training Initiative (APTI), which was established by the Fogarty International Centre and represents a collaboration of the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, USA, the African Academy of Sciences, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. At NIH, Dr. Hormenu worked under the tutelage of Anne E. Sumner, MD. in the Section for Ethnicity and Health at the Diabetes and Obesity branch in the National Institutes of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). His research explored the social determinants of cardiometabolic health among African immigrants. He specifically studied the influence of social factors on physiologic stress measured by the allostatic load score in Africans in the American study. He also examined the influence of cultural identity, behaviour, and socioeconomic factors on cardiometabolic health among African immigrants. Through this research training, he acquired the skills of cardiometabolic diseases epidemiology, lifestyle and behaviour measurement, stress and sleep quality measurements, CVD risk calculation, and the calculation of an allostatic load score, a measure of physiologic stress.
Dr. Thomas Hormenu, having acquired these skills through the APTI programme in the USA, wished for the replication of these skills in his home country as an early career researcher, but the impossibility was poorly equipped research labs with less financial support for scholarly research in his country. But with the help of the APTI programme, Dr. Thomas Hormenu was awarded a fellowship grant, seed money for the establishment of a research lab and the purchase of necessary equipment for glucose analysis, lipid profiles, the haemoglobin A1C (HbA1C) analyzer, and other essential consumables and reagents for the research, as well as financial support for the conduct of the research on diabetes diagnosis and remission.
In Ghana, Dr. Hormenu is currently developing a prospective study to determine the prevalence of undiagnosed diabetes and prediabetes and apply an evidence-based, efficacious, culturally sensitive lifestyle intervention to decrease the social, familial, and personal costs of diabetes in Ghana. He is interested in building collaborative relationships and forming research consortiums with teams of experts in academia as well as clinicians and other health professionals to conduct research to develop innovative African-based lifestyle interventions that focus on diabetes remission as well as prevention. More importantly, in the era of high rates of infectious diseases like COVID-19 and malaria in Africa and their virulence linked to underlying health conditions (hypertension and diabetes), community screening for diabetes and other risk factors for cardiometabolic diseases and early intervention to prevent CVD risks are essential.
Through community screening for undiagnosed diabetes and the application of culturally sensitive, cost-effective lifestyle interventions for diabetes remission, it may be possible to reduce the burden of infectious diseases on countries in sub-Saharan Africa and other developing countries.
Dr. Thomas Hormenu is a health promotion expert and cardiometabolic epidemiologist from Ghana. He is a senior lecturer in the Department of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Ghana. He is a grantee of the APTI fellowship grant, funded by the AAS in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation under the auspices of the African Academy of Sciences.