Impaired fasting glucose (IFG) or impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) or borderline diabetes are the other names of prediabetes.
What is Prediabetes?
Prediabetes is the presence of raised blood glucose levels higher than usual, but not high enough to be classified as diabetes.
What should I do if I have prediabetes?
Prediabetes may be scary while diagnosed. However, you have an excellent chance to use this opportunity to turn healthy by a complete lifestyle change.
If you have pre-diabetes, still you can reduce your risk of getting diabetes with modest weight loss and physical more activity. You can able to return to normal glucose levels or slow down the progression of type 2 diabetes.
How long can a person be in the pre-diabetes without causing damage to organs?
Often 90 % of pre-diabetic people have no idea that they have prediabetes. About 50 % of people who are prediabetes will eventually develop diabetes.
Without any intervention, prediabetes is likely to progress into type 2 diabetes in 10 years or less. If you have prediabetes, then the long-term diabetes complications may already be starting.
Prediabetes symptoms, causes & risk factors
Reversing of prediabetes can be possible with weight loss that comes from healthy eating and physical more activity.
What are the symptoms of prediabetes?
What are the warning signs of prediabetes? Warning signs of prediabetes are frequent urination, too much thirst, and unusual hunger.
Most people do not experience any prediabetes symptoms. A blood test is the best way to diagnose prediabetes. The symptoms of prediabetes are the same as diabetes symptoms.
What is the difference between prediabetes and type 2 diabetes?
Prediabetes is slightly higher sugar in the bloodstream than it is. It is an early warning sign that the body is struggling to maintain a healthy blood glucose level.
Slowly over time, prediabetes may progress towards full-blown diabetes type 2. Type 2 diabetes is the pancreas inability to produce enough insulin or body cells is not adequately responding to the insulin that leads to increased blood glucose level.
Type 1 diabetes is an entirely different condition that results due to auto-immune dysfunction attacking the pancreas and destroyed the insulin-secreting pancreatic beta cells. That leads to low or no insulin secretion by the pancreatic beta cells.
What causes prediabetes? What are the risk factors of prediabetes?
Pre-diabetes is a warning sign that metabolism is getting out of balance. The prediabetes causes are the same as diabetes causes. Similarly, prediabetes risk factors are also the same as diabetes risk factors.
Why should you be more cautious about prediabetes?
About 50 % of people who are prediabetes will eventually develop diabetes.
Diabetes progression: Prediabetes sometimes progresses to type 2 diabetes; 50% risk over ten years of progressing to full-blown diabetes. Many newly identified prediabetes patients’ progress to diabetes in less than three years. Reference: Diabetes Care. 30 (2): 228–33.
Signs of neuropathy is eminent in case of prediabetes.
Nerve damage: Small nerve fibers are prominently affected, and maybe the earliest detectable sign of neuropathy in prediabetes. The spectrum of neuropathy is in diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance. References: Neurology January 14, 2003 vol. 60 no: 1 108-111. Diabetes Care, August 2001, vol. 24 no: 8 1448-1453.
Long-term prediabetes is a risk factor for mortality.
Mortality risk: Impaired fasting glucose (IFG), as well as impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), is a risk factor for mortality. Reference: The Australian Diabetes, Obesity, and Lifestyle Study (AusDiab)". Circulation. 116 (2): 151–57.
Cardiovascular risk: Inflammation markers and metabolic characteristics of subjects with one-hour plasma glucose levels, 1-hour OGTT result over 155 mg/dl (or 8.6 mmol/L) links with markers for cardiovascular disease. Reference: Diabetes Care November 16, 2009, DOI: 10.2337/dc09-134.