Borderline Diabetes Is Affecting Millions of People Every Year

It can send a chill up anyone’s spine being informed by your physician that you have borderline diabetes. This is a disease that can literally alter your life. But, each year, hundreds of thousands of patients go through that scenario. The number of people diagnosed with diabetes continually rises. At present, there are more than 18 million known case of diabetes in the U.S. It’s calculated that there are somewhere around 6 million more people that have diabetes and are not aware of it. Diabetes remains a serious health problem costing patients billions of dollars in health care every year.

Borderline diabetes, also known as pre-diabetes, is a condition where a person has higher glucose levels than normal, but not enough to be diagnosed as diabetic. What are the the symptoms of borderline diabetes? For many people this is a symptom-free disease, so most people with pre-diabetes are unaware that they have. In a person without diabetes, the body will produce insulin to help the cells break down food into energy. In diabetics and pre-diabetics, however,  either the body is unable to create insulin or it is unable to utilize the insulin. This is one reason why people with borderline diabetes tend to be tired much of the time. They are eating, but their body is unable to break down the food into usable energy.

A lot of physicians have discontinued using the terminology borderline diabetes to describe this condition. The way they see it, a person who exhibits the symptoms of pre-diabetes is, in fact diabetic. and they see no real medical reason to confuse the situation. many also feel that telling someone that they have borderline diabetes inhibits the person from taking diagnosis seriously – because “borderline” sound as if you don’t really have a disease. Others doctors feel that the condition of these patients is more precisely described as insulin resistant or impaired glucose tolerance. Other doctors, however, still use the term and find it helpful to maintain the distinction between pre-diabetes and diabetes.

For those in the medical field that continue to use the term, borderline diabetes is diagnosed when a person’s glucose level, as determined by glucose tests, fall between 100 to 125 milligrams per deciliter.

Unfortunately, in most cases, a person who has borderline diabetes will see the disease progress to diabetes. In some cases, however, with a change of eating habits and other healthy lifestyle changes, the disease will be reversed.

According to many health experts, pre-diabetes is a preventable disease. Studies have shown a distinct correlation between the increase in the amount of fast foods that we eat and the new incidences of type II diabetes. Likewise, there is a correlation between our increasingly sedentary lifestyles with increases in the number of people diagnosed with diabetics. Making the defeat of diabetes even more urgent is that a person with pre-diabetes or diabetes is at greater risk for a host of other diseases including heart disease, stroke, liver disease, and more.

Fortunately, scientists and researchers have started to discover and catalog the many risk factors that predispose one towards getting diabetes. They are hopeful that, in the near future, diabetes will be looked upon as disease of the past.

Borderline Diabetes: The Facts

Progress has been very slow over the last few years with regards to research and treatment of diabetes. Around 15 years ago patients were starting to be  diagnosed as being “borderline diabetes” or “pre-diabetes” even while they were enjoying holidays abroad.  Some argued this lead to a false sense of reassurance.  Treatment for diabetes usually wasn’t started, as it wasn’t thought of as being necessary, since you were still in a grace period but then the patient often got worse.

The patient actually became worse because there is no such condition as “borderline diabetes”.  It’s like being pregnant – there is no such thing as being only a little bit pregnant.  You are either pregnant or you are not.  It’s the same with diabetes.  You either have it or you don’t.  There are no known symptoms or signs that point to you having “borderline diabetes”.

Unfortunately, decades ago, it was thought that the body put of signs and symptoms that cried out that it was developing diabetes.  This is what “borderline diabetes” was called.  However, that hope has died.  The body does not give off any warning signs before you have to start managing your insulin and diet.  You just fall head over heels right into being a diabetic.

However, you can show worse symptoms with your diabetes than the next diabetic.  Blood sugar levels differ and symptoms differ.  This is kind of like where the myth of “borderline diabetes” got started.  The ones who weren’t too affected in their everyday life and didn’t go easily into comas must be only have “borderline diabetes”.  No, it was because they managed their health better.

If a senior relative or friend insists that they have only “borderline diabetes”, don’t argue.  This is probably what they were told years ago and it’s stuck in their heads.  In time, the terms “borderline diabetes” and “pre-diabetes” can be put to rest.

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