Many don’t know they have the condition, experts say, adding that they’ll advance to Type 2 diabetes if they don’t exercise moderately and improve their diet.
March 21, 2011
Diabetes doesn’t pounce on a person out of the blue. Before the diagnosis, a person may linger on the fringes of the condition — blood sugar high but not yet over that line that is clearly diabetes — for years. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released figures in January showing that the number of American adults with prediabetes had jumped from 57 million in 2008 to 79 million in 2010. During the same period, the number with full-on diabetes grew from 23.6 million to 26 million, the vast majority of which are Type 2 cases.
These numbers are somewhat inflated by the use of a new test, hemoglobin A1c, that can detect cases of prediabetes or diabetes that older tests might have missed. Still, experts have no doubt that prediabetes really is on the rise. “Many people have it and don’t know it,” says Dr. Kevin Kaiserman, a pediatric endocrinologist in private practice and president of the American Diabetes Assn, Los Angeles.
Just like people with Type 2 diabetes, those with prediabetes have high blood sugar levels because their body has become less responsive to insulin, the hormone that keeps blood sugar levels in check, or doesn’t produce enough of it. But having prediabetes is not necessarily a guarantee that a person will get Type 2 diabetes. Improved nutrition and increased physical activity can help stave off the condition.
“Lifestyle changes can absolutely reverse the course,” Kaiserman says.
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