Epidemiology of prediabetes.

Identifying individuals at increased risk of developing diabetes has assumed increasing importance with the expansion of the evidence from clinical trials on the prevention or delay of type 2 diabetes using lifestyle modification and medication. The epidemiology of prediabetes depends on the diagnostic method used. Glucose measures defining impaired glucose tolerance and impaired fasting glucose levels identify about 10% of the adults to have prediabetes, whereas glycated hemoglobin-based criteria identify a significantly lower proportion of the population. Increasingly, multifactorial risk tools are being used and cut-points set to identify approximately 15% of the population as being at high risk.