Study: Lifestyle Changes and Meds for Prediabetes May Prevent Full-Blown Disease
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(NEW YORK) — A recent study found that treating prediabetes with lifestyle changes and medicine might prevent it from developing into full-blown diabetes, Health Day reports.
Researchers said that people with prediabetes whose blood sugar returned to normal were 56 percent less likely to develop diabetes within five years following treatment. Prediabetes occurs when blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not as high as fully-developed diabetes.
Dr. Leigh Perreault, lead researcher of the study, said that about 70 percent of people with prediabetes will develop type 2 diabetes in their lifetime.
The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 79 million Americans–35 percent of the adult population–have prediabetes. The agency says that about 11 percent of those people develop full diabetes annually, according to Health Day.
For the study, the researchers looked at over 3,000 patients with prediabetes and used data from the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study.
The study was published in the June 9 online edition of The Lancet.
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