Older Adults With Pre-Diabetes Seldom Get Full-Blown Version

Paper results suggest doctors should focus screening efforts on other indicators like hypertension, say researchers

Older adults with prediabetes at greater risk of other illness than diabetes, and should be treated accordingly, a new paper suggests.Khongtham/Shutterstock

Older adults classified as having prediabetes due to moderately elevated measures of blood sugar usually don’t go on to develop full-blown diabetes, according to a new study.

Doctors still consider prediabetes a useful indicator of future diabetes risk in young and middle-aged adults. However, the study, which followed nearly 3,500 older adults, of median age 76, for about six and a half years, suggests that prediabetes is not a useful marker of diabetes risk in people of more advanced age.