57 million Americans have prediabetes: Study

Prediabetes is a warning sign that type 2 diabetes is around the corner. People with prediabetes have blood sugar levels that are higher than normal but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. Approximately 24 million Americans have type 2 diabetes, but an even more staggering 57 million people in the United States have prediabetes, meaning they are at grave risk of developing this disease. And once a prediabetic person becomes diabetic, there is no turning back.

Alarmingly, 85 percent of prediabetic people are unaware of their condition, and one quarter remain unaware, and therefore suffer undiagnosed, even after they have developed type 2 diabetes.

If these current trends continue, 103 million Americans will be considered at risk of developing the disease by 2018, putting them at risk of developing the devastating complications that strike people with diabetes and taking an even greater toll on the resources of the health care system. Diabetes costs an estimated $174 billion annually to the U.S. health system.

Dr. Deneen Vojta, MD, senior vice president of the UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform & Modernization and one of the key architects of UnitedHealth Group's Diabetes Prevention and Control Alliance (DPCA), is available to discuss the epidemic of prediabetes. As part of November's National Diabetes Awareness Month, Dr. Vojta can discuss what people can do to take control of their health and prevent the development of type 2 diabetes.

"Type 2 diabetes is largely a preventable disease, and there is unequivocal evidence that its enormous human and economic toll can be significantly reduced by early and aggressive intervention," Dr. Vojta says. "Prediabetes is the warning sign that it's time to take action. Research has shown that prediabetic people who lose just five percent of their body weight can reduce the conversion to full-blown diabetes by 58 percent."

The challenge is significant: only about half of those with prediabetes said they had tried to drop pounds or increase their activity level in the preceding year, according to a recent study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine .

"It's critical that we expand proven diabetes prevention programs nationwide to provide access to quality care and services. This will help to encourage healthier lifestyle choices, control costs, and loosen the grip that diabetes has, and will have, on our health and our health care system," Dr. Vojta adds.