by OSF Newsroom
The American Diabetes Association designates the fourth Tuesday in March as Diabetes Alert Day®, a time to understand the seriousness of the disease and know your risk.
And a recent report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted a rapid rise in cases of diabetes in young people over the next few decades.
It’s a good thing that influencers and medical professionals continue to preach diabetes awareness, says Dr. Uche Allanah, an internal medicine physician with OSF HealthCare based in Danville, Illinois. That’s because if undiagnosed or untreated, diabetes can be fatal.
Dr. Allanah says prediabetes describes when you are at risk for diabetes because your blood sugar is higher than normal. She says a blood test is necessary to diagnose prediabetes because you don’t present with symptoms. In fact, the American Medical Association says of the one in three U.S. adults with prediabetes, more than 80% don’t know they have it.
Dr. Uche Allanah
