Diabetes (the chronic elevation of fasting blood sugar above 125 or blood sugar above 199 on glucose challenge) cost the United States $174 billion in 2007.

Researchers calculate that, upon diagnosis, diabetes cost a typical patient $4,174 a year and keeps getting more expensive,. Most of that money goes for the complications of diabetes such as kidney disease, eye disease and heart conditions. These can often be prevented by helping controlblood sugar with lifestyle enhancements (exercise, diet, and appropriate dietary supplement).

There's a long period of chronic elevation of non-diabetes blood sugar that precedes the development of diabetes, and it is known how to screen people to find those with the elevation.  By identifying these individuals, much of the cost can be reduced by eliminating the conditions currently known as impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), called by various names such as “pre-diabetes”, “borderline diabetes”, “a touch of diabetes”--- and treating them through lifestyle enhancement, much of the cost of diabetes can be eliminated.

Our focus on what we're ultimately trying to accomplish is to reduce the cost and the prevention of blindness, dialysis, heart attack, and stroke (complications associated with abnormal glucose levels).  Indeed, studies have now shown that the risk for cardiovascular disease is already elevated at levels below these levels.  Previously, it was thought that blindness and kidney failure leading to dialysis did not occur when blood sugar is kept below 126.  But, this is not correct.  Hence, if there is one exception to a rule, then the rule is wrong.  It is known that glucose levels are progressive and that the current blood sugar level of 126 mg/dL fasting and 200 mg/dL to diagnose diabetes are arbitrary.

How is it possible to have diabetic blindness and kidney failure without diabetes, unless the diagnostic criteria are not stringent enough?

Data clearly show that screening and treating pre-diabetes not only make sense, but actually merits designating it as the method for lowering the cost of healthcare and improving the health of individuals through  lifestyle enrichment.