Prediabetes

Can the art of predictive medicine anticipate the development of diabetes? And if so, what can be done about it? How early is early enough to intervene effectively? With what therapeutic modality? Why? Big babies are not an infrequent occurrence in mothers with normal carbohydrate metabolism for another 10, 20, or even 30 years. The abnor- mality present during pregnancy is now accepted as what is inherited with the diabetic predisposition, or what can be recognized as the diabetic susceptibility. It occurs before hyperglycemia, during the phase of dy- namic resistance to diabetes, during the prediabetic period. Prediabetes means before diabetes, and was applied for the first time by Mara~on in Spain, to signify the stage before hyperglycemia. Foglia in Argentina used the term in 1944 for his pancreatectomized rats. We pub- lished the first paper on humans in 1951 (Camerini-Davalos, R.A., Landabure, P., and Serantes, N., Rev Med Cordoba 39: 187).

From Book News, Inc.The term prediabetes has been defined as the condition of those persons who are predisposed to hyperglycemia, but in whom no abnormalities of carbohydrate metabolism is demonstrable. The contributors to these proceedings address the issues involved in determining how early in life the disease trend is manifest. They discuss prediabetes in animals, immunological markers, pathology of prediabetes, population studies, prediabetes treatment, and diabetes prevention. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.