What is "prediabetes"?

What is "prediabetes"?

Anne Peters, MD, FACP, CDE (Professor and Director of Clinical Diabetes Programs, USC Keck School of Medicine) gives expert video advice on: How is prediabetes treated?; What happens when a diabetic doesn't get enough hydration? and more...

Prediabetes means an elevation in blood sugar levels above the normal level, but an elevation that's not really considered to be diabetes yet. So the definition is if the blood sugar level fasting, without eating overnight, is between 100 and 125, then that's considered "prediabetes." The point of this is that it's not that one day you wake up with the disease that is prediabetes, it means that you slowly started and gradually have gotten your blood sugar levels higher, higher, and higher. What you want to do is not only be aware of what your fasting blood sugar levels are, but to track the change over time. So, if you start out with a blood sugar level of 95 when you're 38, and when you're 45 it's 105, and 2 years later it's 110, you're really getting worse.