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

[Ronancastled]

Came upon this tweet yesterday

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1449866166797623302

An A1c of 5.86% in our money

Now the UK cutoff is 42-47 for pre-diabetes, it's 5.7%(39)-6.4%(47) in the US but either way it's trending in the wrong direction.
The average adult FBG is 113.6mg/dl which is 6.3mmol/L in our money.
I'd wager there's diagnosed diabetics on this site everyday that have better BG control than this average population.

Don't think either that we're living on a different planet, this Dutch study from 2019 had similar findings. with an average A1c of 38.

This whole thing is like a slow motion car crash that the general public are oblivious to.
My local radio station were calling out Bruce Spingsteen & Chris Martin this morning for advocating fad diets such as IF & OMAD.
The usual dietary advice was trotted out, limit processed food (good), cut out red meat & dairy (nonsense).
I hope non-invasive CGMs will be the eye opener the non-diabetic population need but am not holding out too much hope.

 

[Ronancastled]

I never even got to the average waist size, over 40" for a man, 39" for a woman.

(mod edit)

 

[Omar51]

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

 

[Zhnyaka]

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

 

[AloeSvea]

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!

 

[EllieM]

It would help if different countries had the same definition of prediabetic.

The US (and Canada?) defines prediabetes as 5.7% and above , which is 39mmol/mol, whereas the UK is 42 and above, Australia is 42 and above and Aotearoa/NZ is 41 .