Pre-Diabetes Fast Facts

According to the Center for Disease Control:

• Prediabetes is a condition that raises the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and eye disease.
  
  
• People with prediabetes have impaired fasting glucose (IFG), impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), or both—conditions where blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be classified as diabetes.
  
  
• People with prediabetes are 5-15 times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than are people with normal glucose values.

• Progression to diabetes among those with prediabetes is not inevitable. Studies show that people with prediabetes who lose at least 7% of their body weight and engage in moderate physical activity at least 150 minutes per week can prevent or delay diabetes and even return their blood glucose levels to normal.
  
  
• Clinical research shows intensive lifestyle interventions are the most effective way to prevent or delay type 2 diabetes.
  
  
• About 54 million individuals in the United States aged 21 years and older have prediabetes2, 12 million of whom are overweight and between the ages of 45–74.
  
  
• In the United States, approximately one of every three persons born in 2000 will develop diabetes in his or her lifetime. The lifetime risk of developing diabetes is even greater for ethnic minorities: two of every five African Americans and Hispanics, and one of two Hispanic females, will develop the disease.

Source: Center for Disease Control. Frequently Asked Questions Abour Prediabetes. Date Accessed: 07/13/09