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June 9th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda SATURDAY, June 9 (HealthDay News) — Treating prediabetes
aggressively with lifestyle changes and medications may prevent its
progression to diabetes, a new study finds.
People with prediabetes who had their blood sugar returned to normal
were 56 percent less likely to develop full diabetes in the five years
after treatment, researchers say.
Prediabetes is a condition where blood sugar levels are higher than
normal, but not as high as seen in full-blown diabetes.
“The biggest risk for people with prediabetes is that about 70 percent
of them will develop type 2 diabetes over their lifetime,” said lead
researcher Dr. Leigh Perreault, an associate professor of medicine at the
University of Colorado-Denver.
“This is singlehandedly fueling the diabetes epidemic,” she added.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an
estimated 79 million Americans — about 35 percent of the adult
population — have prediabetes. In addition, about 11 percent of these
people go on to develop full diabetes each year, the agency notes.
The report by Perreault and colleagues was published in the June 9
online edition of The Lancet to coincide with the planned Saturday
presentation of the study findings at an American Diabetes Association
meeting, in Philadelphia.
For their study, Perreault’s team used data from the Diabetes
Prevention Program Outcomes Study, which included more than 3,000 patients
with prediabetes and was funded by the U.S National Institutes of Health.
People in that trial were randomly assigned to one of three groups: one
group was asked to make lifestyle changes; a second group was given the
drug metformin, which lowers blood sugar; and the third group was given an
inactive placebo. The goal of the program was for participants to reduce
their blood sugar levels to a normal range.
The new study looked at these individuals years later to see if the
gains they made during the trial were maintained.
The researchers found that patients who were able to return to normal
blood sugar levels, even for a short period, could prevent or slow
progression to full type 2 diabetes.
People who reduced their blood sugar had a 56 percent reduction in
progression to diabetes during nearly six years of follow-up regardless of
how those normal blood sugar levels were achieved and even when it was
only for a short time, the researchers found.
It didn’t matter how people got back to normal, whether with diet and
exercise or with metformin or placebo, Perreault said. As long as they
went back to normal they had the benefit, she noted.
Dr. Natalia Yakubovich, an assistant professor at McMaster University
in Hamilton, Ontario, and co-author of an accompanying journal editorial,
said that “if these findings are confirmed in other studies, an ability to
regress to normal glucose regulation can help identify people at lower
risk of developing diabetes, while those people who do not regress despite
conventional therapies might need to be treated more aggressively to
prevent diabetes.”
However, she added, “whether the regression improves other long-term
health care outcomes such as heart disease, kidney disease or blindness is
currently unknown and needs further study.”
Another expert, Dr. Joel Zonszein, a professor of clinical medicine at
Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a physician at the Clinical
Diabetes Center at Montefiore Medical Center, both in New York City, added
that “the analysis stresses the significant long-term reduction in
diabetes risk when someone with prediabetes returns to [normal blood-sugar
levels], supporting a shift in the standard of care to early and
aggressive glucose-lowering treatment in patients at highest risk.
“My recommendation for my patients with early diabetes is therapeutic
lifestyle changes plus aggressive anti-diabetic agents [often in
combination],” he said.
This study supports the idea that early and aggressive glucose-lowering
not only prevents complications, but also may preserve insulin function,
thus requiring fewer medications later, Zonszein said.
Dr. Minisha Sood, an endocrinologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York
City, noted that it is currently the standard of care to treat prediabetes
with lifestyle changes and in some cases metformin.
“Early control and regression to normal glucose levels does confer
benefit,” she said.
Medicare and private insurance typically provide coverage for blood
sugar testing and for medications.
More information
For more about prediabetes, visit the American Diabetes
Association.
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