Prediabetes is not a sentence!

Approximately 7.3% of the adult population of the globe have abnormalities in metabolic processes that lead to hyperglycemia, an increase in blood sugar levels, in other words, to a condition called prediabetes.

The study involved volunteers over 60 years old living in the center of Stockholm. Approximately 75% (2,575 participants) completed the study, which lasted 12 years. The average age of the participants was 74.4 years; 65% of them were women, 36% at the start of the study had already been diagnosed with prediabetes, based on the biochemical blood index HbA1c (glycohemoglobin), which reflects the blood sugar content over a long period of time.

Among the participants with prediabetes: 

• 42% had no significant changes in their condition,
• 22% returned to normoglycemia,
• 13% developed diabetes,
• the remaining 23% died before the end of the study.

The probability of both getting diabetes and returning to a state of normoglycemia decreased with age. For many, pre-diabetes was a destination, not an intermediate point.

Overweight participants were almost three times more likely to develop diabetes, and those who lost weight (ranging from 2 to 15 kg) were three times more likely to develop normoglycemia. It is unknown whether weight loss reduces insulin insensitivity or increases the conversion of delta to beta cells (in diabetes mellitus, there is a loss of beta cells that produce insulin and their replacement with delta cells that produce the hormone somatostatin, which, in particular, suppresses insulin secretion).

It has also been noted that physical activity reduces mortality without directly affecting glucose metabolism.

Currently, there are at least 20 variants of genes involved in the development of type 2 diabetes, and each protein can have a positive, negative or zero effect on any of them. In this study, much attention was paid to the HbA1c indicator, but there are also other ways to detect a dangerous condition, for example, an empty stomach blood glucose test or an oral glucose tolerance test.

The article Shang et. al Natural history of prediabetes in older adults from a population‐based longitudinal study is published in the Journal of Internal Medicine.

Elena Panasyuk, portal "Eternal Youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru / based on the materials of the American Council On Science and Health: Prediabetes Does Not Predict Diabetes