No one is excused from diabetes. That’s the message behind a new public education campaign targeting the 86 million American adults with what’s known as prediabetes. More than one in three adults in the United States has prediabetes, a serious health condition that can lead to type 2 diabetes, heart attack and stroke, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
If you have prediabetes, you have higher than normal blood sugar levels, but not high enough to be diagnosed with full-blown diabetes. “Awareness is crucial in the effort to stop type 2 diabetes,” David Marrero, director of the Diabetes Translation Research Center at Indiana University School of Medicine, said in a CDC news release.
To learn your risk, you can take a short online test at DoIHavePrediabetes.org. The test can also be taken through texts and interactive TV and radio announcements.
“This is a very simple and quick tool that will allow people to see if they are at risk for prediabetes or diabetes,” said Dr. Mary Vouyiouklis Kellis, an endocrinologist at Cleveland Clinic. “If they are at higher risk, this will hopefully prompt them to seek medical attention sooner.”
The majority of people with prediabetes don’t know they have it. Yet, if not treated, up to 30 percent of people with prediabetes will develop type 2 diabetes within five years, according to the news release.
