Prediabetes: What It Is, Who Has It, and How to Stop It Becoming Diabetes

Prediabetes means your blood glucose (blood sugar) is higher than normal, but not high enough to be called diabetes. Over time, too much glucose damages the body, and prediabetes makes type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke more likely. But lifestyle changes now may delay or prevent type 2 diabetes.

What causes it

Prediabetes usually comes from a problem with insulin, the hormone that gets glucose into your cells for energy:

• Insulin resistance — the body can't use its insulin properly, so glucose builds up in the blood; or
• the body can't make enough insulin to keep blood sugar healthy.

Researchers think being overweight and not getting regular physical activity are major factors.

Who has it

About 1 in 3 adults. It's more common in people who:

• are overweight or have obesity;
• are 45 or older;
• have a parent, brother or sister with diabetes;
• are African American, Alaska Native, American Indian, Asian American, Hispanic/Latino, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander American;
• aren't physically active;
• have high blood pressure or high cholesterol;
• have had gestational diabetes (diabetes in pregnancy);
• have a history of heart disease or stroke;
• have metabolic syndrome or polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).

Symptoms? Usually none

Most people with prediabetes don't know it. Some have darkened skin in the armpit or on the back and sides of the neck, sometimes with many small skin growths there.

Diagnosis

What to do

If you have prediabetes, you may be able to delay or prevent type 2 diabetes by:

1. losing weight, if you're overweight;
2. getting regular physical activity;
3. following a healthy, reduced-calorie eating plan.

Sometimes a provider may also suggest diabetes medicines. If you're at risk of prediabetes, the same changes may prevent it altogether.

Sources

Based on the MedlinePlus health topic "Prediabetes," National Library of Medicine, drawing on the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The source gives the A1C level for type 2 diabetes as "above 6.5%," which leaves 6.5% itself unclassified, so no exact cutoff is given here.