What Is Prediabetes?
Prediabetes is a medical condition when the blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes.
(You may refer to the table below to know if are suffering from prediabetes)
Did You Know?
1 in 7 adults aged 18 to 69 years has prediabetes in Singapore?
Prevalence of prediabetes will continue to rise from 15.5% to 24.9%.
Risk Factors
Family history of diabetes
Aged 40 years
and above
BMI 23.0 kg/m2 or higher
High blood pressure
Inactive
lifestyle
Signs & Symptoms
Usually asymptomatic until symptoms of type 2 diabetes occur like feeling thirsty despite drinking lots of water, blurred vision, feeling tired, or poor healing of cuts and wounds.
Causes
When insulin, a hormone that is produced by the pancreas is not enough to convert blood glucose into cells to be used as energy.
Some external factors include the lack of exercise, having an unbalanced diet, and a family history of diabetes can cause one to have prediabetes.
Complications
It can lead to type 2 diabetes and uncontrolled diabetes can cause both blood vessels and nerves complications like foot disease like numbness, ulcers and gangrene, kidney disease, eye disease, nerve disease like erectile dysfunction, heart disease like angina and heart attack, and stroke.
As symptoms are usually asymptomatic, it is often undetectable if you have prediabetes......
Therefore, to prevent the progression of type 2 diabetes and the unnecessary complications, one should go for blood glucose screening tests. As a result, based on the results (shown in the table below, one will know if he/she has prediabetes.
