Treat Prediabetes / Ray D. Strand, M.D.

Over 50 million people in the United States alone have prediabetes. In August of 2008 a consensus conference involving the American College of Endocrinology convened in Maryland. Dr. Handelsman, chair of the consensus conference said, “We felt we had to come out with some type of recommendation for how to treat these patients who had prediabetes.” Dr. Daniel Einhorn, medical director of the Scripps Whittier Institute for Diabetes in La Jolla, California stated, “Nothing else matches intensive lifestyle management in reducing the complications of prediabetes.”

Here are the first major recommendations for the treatment of patients who fall into this category of having prediabetes. Previously, physicians have been advised to just follow these patients and when they develop diabetes to begin their treatment. What is interesting is the fact that when this conference looked at all the evidence that was available from our previous clinical trials, aggressive lifestyle management was the absolute best way to treat these patients. Drug use was just not near as effective in reducing the complications of prediabetes as were lifestyle changes.

RAY D. STRAND, M.D.
Specialist in Nutritional Medicine