Average American adult is now pre-diabetic by the US cutoff

My last A1c was 5.6 and I don’t take any medicine.

It seems to me that with well-controlled diabetes, A1c is better than in healthy people, because we constantly check our bg and as soon as it rises a little, we take medications or severely restrict food, but healthy people do not do this. In addition, even if you do not take into account "harmful" food, fruits, for example, contain a lot of carbohydrates, including fast-acting ones. For example, in order to eat a banana, we will inject insulin and wait for it to take effect, but healthy people will not do this, and their pancreas will need time to compensate after eating. I think there's nothing wrong with their bg rising from this if their pancreas can handle it perfectly

Yes these stats are disturbing indeed, in terms of what is becoming the normal situation for many people on the SAD - Standard American Diet, or a high carb low (healthy) fat way of eating. In my country, Aotearoa/NZ, I think it has gone from one third to roughly a half, of folks with raised blood glucose into the HBA1c of high 30s into the prediabetes range, but it's too early for me to hunt for those new figures to confirm.

When I consider what I go through trying to get as little glucose into my body as I can from food ("I have way too much sugar in my blood already, I don't need to add to it by eating it" I say to my friends who are still confused about a low-carb way of eating), I am not surprised. There is sugar in EVERYTHING, just about. All the sugar that even gets added to meat, which absolutely doesn't need it. Anything outside of the fruit and vegetable aisle (and even then we have made our fruit and vegetables sweeter by design), and the meat and poultry section (avoiding the added sugar marinades)- sugar sugar sugar. I think it is actually testament to how good a blood glucose regulating system IS that the prediabetes stats aren't even worse!