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A Swedish study suggests that older adults with slightly elevated blood glucose, sometimes called "prediabetes", do not usually develop diabetes in their own right.
The researchers followed 2,575 men and women aged 60 and over without diabetes up to 12 years. At the start of the study, 918 people, or 36% of the group, had a blood sugar level above normal, still below the threshold of diabetes.
Only 119 people, 13% of those who started with high blood glucose, developed diabetes. Another 204, or 22%, had their blood sugar levels fall enough to no longer be considered pre-diabetic.
"The progression to diabetes is not the only destination," said lead author of the study, Ying Shang, of the Karolinska Institute's Research Center on Aging. Stockholm.
"In fact, the possibility of remaining prediabetic or even returning to (normal blood glucose) is actually quite high (64%), without taking any medicine," Shang said by email. "Lifestyle changes such as weight management or blood pressure control can help stop the progression of prediabetes."
The average blood glucose level over about three months can be estimated by measuring a form of hemoglobin that binds to glucose in the blood, called A1c. Hemoglobin A1c levels greater than or equal to 6.5% indicate diabetes.
Rates between 5.7% and 6.4% are considered high, but not yet diabetic, while 5.7% or less are considered normal.
Worldwide, approximately 352 million adults have high blood sugar levels that are not high enough to warrant a diagnosis of diabetes, the study team noted in the Journal of Internal Medicine. Medicine. By 2045, this figure is expected to reach 587 million, or 8.3% of adults worldwide.
People in the study with prediabetes were more likely to return to healthy blood glucose if they lost weight, had no heart disease, and had low blood pressure.
Obese adults with prediabetes were more likely to develop diabetes in their own right.
The study was not designed to determine why people with prediabetes could progress to a full-blown disease or regain a healthy blood sugar level.
One of the drawbacks of the study is that there were too few people with prediabetes to draw general conclusions about how the disease could evolve for millions of people around the world. Researchers also lacked data on lifestyle changes, such as changes in eating or exercise habits, that people might have used to try to reverse prediabetes.
"Larger studies will be needed to confirm these findings, as well as more information about treatments and lifestyle to better understand why fewer people have become diabetic," said Dr. R Brandon Stacey of the Faculty of Medicine Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
"By having more information on lifestyle and treatment, it may be possible to better identify patterns that allow patients to lose weight or lower their blood pressure to potentially reduce the risk of cancer." risk of diabetes, "said Stacey, who did not participate in the study. by email.
Still, the findings suggest that a diagnosis of prediabetes should motivate patients to change their lifestyle, said Dr. Ron Ruby, co-director of the Cardiometabolic Center at Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center in Torrance, California.
"Optimize the things you can control: weight loss, diet, exercise, and sleep," said Ruby, who did not participate in the study, by e-mail.
"This approach, while difficult to maintain in the long term, may be enough to prevent the progression of diabetes."
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