Are You One of the 33% With Prediabetes? 90% Don't Realize It

Losing weight and increasing physical activity can help prevent type 2 diabetes. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)

Developing Type 2 diabetes is a bit like getting dumped in a relationship (only much worse). Even if you are blind-sided when it occurs, it really doesn't occur overnight. Instead, you may miss the many warning signs, until your doctor tells you the bad news (about diabetes, that is, and not about your relationship).

The just released 8th Edition of the International Diabetes Federation's (IDFs) Diabetes Atlas confirms that the global diabetes epidemic continues to get worse. This year 10 million more people living with diabetes than in 2015, meaning that 1 in 11 adults now has diabetes, for a total of 425 million people. Diabetes includes type 1 diabetes (otherwise known as juvenile-onset diabetes) in which you don't make enough insulin and type 2 diabetes (previously known as adult-onset diabetes, although now more and more children are developing it) in which your body doesn't effectively use the insulin you produce. There are other types of diabetes but the vast majority (around 90%) of all diabetes cases are type 2 diabetes.

A major aim for World Diabetes Day, which is today, and Diabetes Awareness Month (which is this month, November) is to help "people learn their risk for prediabetes and Type 2 diabetes along with steps to take to potentially reverse course," as  Heather Hodge, Director of Chronic Disease Prevention Programs at the YMCA-USA (also known as the Y-USA for short, in case you don't have enough time to say the MCA) explained.

The lead up to type 2 diabetes can be missed at two different stages. The first is not properly addressing obesity or being overweight, which are major risk factors for type 2 diabetes. As the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery indicates, over 90% of those with type 2 diabetes are overweight or have obesity. Even modest weight loss (5% of body weight) can significantly reduce the risk of developing diabetes. With the global obesity epidemic continuing to spread and get worse as I described previously for Forbes (e.g., obesity rates among adults having nearly tripled in the U.S. from 1960 and 2010), more and more people are at risk for becoming diabetic.

Indeed, as I also detailed for Forbes earlier, the prevalence of diabetes has been steadily climbing, more than doubling among men and climbing by over 50% among women worldwide between 1980 and 2014.  Diabetes not only can lead to major health problems such as heart disease, kidney problems, limb amputations, and early death but also costs for you, business, and society. For example, in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the average annual medical costs for those diagnosed with diabetes is around $13,700.

The stage even closer to diabetes is developing prediabetes, a condition in which your blood sugar levels are elevated (your fasting blood glucose is in the 100 to 125 range, your 2-hour Plasma Glucose between 140–199 mg/dL, or your hemoglobin A1c is between 5.7 percent and 6.4 percent) but not yet high enough to be considered diabetes. It's a bit like your significant other suddenly getting a major makeover or a whole new wardrobe, telling you that something is imminent without really telling you. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), approximately 84 million American adults (or over 1 in 3) have prediabetes, but 90% don’t even know they have it because they aren't getting their blood sugar checked. People who are prediabetic usually do not have any symptoms. As Hodge explained, "Without intervention, 15-30 percent of people with prediabetes will develop Type 2 diabetes within the next five years. When you start to talk about the effect this has on quality of life and our communities, children and wallets, the need for Diabetes Awareness Month really becomes self-evident." Here's a CDC video on prediabetes: The good news is that during the lead up or the pre-game show to diabetes, diabetes is not necessarily a fait accompli or a done deal. As the YMCA’s Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) for example has shown, there are steps that you can take. The Y currently serves over 50,000 adults who are at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes and has over 1,100 locations in 47 states that offer the YMCA DPP. The Y website includes a quick test to determine your risk of developing type 2 diabetes. While this test doesn't replace a doctor (no website can replace a doctor), the results may prompt you to see a doctor to get properly screened.