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Diabetes prevention is an important component of many workplace wellness plans. A new report shows that identifying prediabetes conditions — and taking specific action — ” may have a substantial return on investment in the future and help prevent a preventable disease.”

American Diabetic Association diagnostic criteria for normal glucose, prediabetes, and diabetes

The report, “Prediabetes and Lifestyle Modification: Time to Prevent a Preventable Disease,” was published in the Permanente Journal last summer.

The report states: “More than 100 million Americans have prediabetes or diabetes. Prediabetes is a condition in which individuals have blood glucose levels higher than normal but not high enough to be classified as diabetes. People with prediabetes have an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes. An estimated 34% of adults have prediabetes. Prediabetes is now recognized as a reversible condition that increases an individual’s risk for development of diabetes. Lifestyle risk factors for prediabetes include overweight and physical inactivity.”

Further: “If untreated, 37% of the individuals with prediabetes may have diabetes in 4 years. Lifestyle intervention may decrease the percentage of prediabetic patients in whom diabetes develops to 20%.”

The report runs through a number of studies, including from the Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group. But with all the potential issues and costs associated with diabetes, lifestyle prevention programs become increasingly meaningful.

The report offers “the following recommendations for practice:

• “Develop a business case for screening for and for treating prediabetes.”
• “Develop clinical guidelines for physicians on how to identify and manage patients with prediabetes.”
• “Develop a registry of patients who have prediabetes similar to registries we have developed for hypertension, diabetes, and asthma.”
• “Develop a low-cost, easily accessible lifestyle management program that would potentially be available for the hundreds of thousands of patients with prediabetes.”