Body Changes 3-6 Years Before Diabetes

The body’s use of glucose for energy alters at least three to six years before diabetes is diagnosed, a new study has found. The study included 6,538 people who at first did not have diabetes. In the next 10 years, doctors did frequent tests of blood glucose (sugar) levels. Other tests related to how the pancreas makes insulin and how easily the body uses it to burn glucose for fuel (insulin sensitivity). More than 500 people developed type 2 diabetes. In these people, blood glucose after a fast and after a meal increased rapidly in the few years before diagnosis. Insulin sensitivity decreased steeply. The body’s ability to make insulin improved for about a year. Then it fell starting three years before diagnosis. All measurements changed much less in people who did not develop diabetes. The journal Lancet published the study. Reuters Health news service wrote about it June 8.