The amount of time really depends on the person, their starting weight and their level of physical activity. Some people may need to lose more weight than others to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. It may take several weeks, months, or years before you notice an improvement. However, the good news is that, once your doctor determines that your blood sugar level is high enough to classify you as prediabetes (but not high enough to be diabetes), there are many preventive measures you can take to stop the onset of total diabetes.
The window of opportunity to prevent or delay the progression from prediabetes to type 2 diabetes is approximately three to six years. After all, you've probably heard the disappointing statistics: up to 70% of people with prediabetes will develop type 2 diabetes in their lifetime¹. It's no fun to have your doctor tell you that you have prediabetes; however, you can take control of your destiny to prevent type 2 diabetes from progressing and even returning to your normal sugar levels. The ADA recommends that people who are diagnosed with prediabetes have their glucose levels monitored.
once a year. In people with prediabetes, some of the long-term damage to the blood vessels, heart, and kidneys may already be beginning. People who have prediabetes have up to a 50% chance of developing type 2 diabetes within five to 10 years, but this is not a definitive fact. Prediabetes, the common precursor to diabetes, affects more than 86 million Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, if left untreated, prediabetes can develop into type 2 diabetes, increasing the risk of other health conditions, such as amputations, blindness, heart attacks and strokes. For people who are diagnosed with prediabetes or are concerned that they may be at risk of having it, “the first thing to do is focus on weight loss and dietary changes,” says Dr. You can even ask your healthcare provider if you need a home glucose meter to check the status of your prediabetes. One of the main ways to diagnose prediabetes is with an HbA1C (a measure of the average blood sugar level over the past 3 months) between 5.7% and 6.4%.
Perhaps the most surprising and worrying thing is that prediabetes, the condition that leads to type 2 diabetes, now affects 96 million people. By joining this program, only 3% of patients with prediabetes had progressed to type 2 diabetes after 2 years and, on average, had lost more than 11% of their body weight. If you have prediabetes, it's important to know that you have prediabetes so you can start trying to reverse it. Other common risk factors for prediabetes include being over 45, exercising less than three times a week, having a father or brother with type 2 diabetes (or a family history of it), and giving birth to a baby weighing more than 9 pounds.
