Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Book

Glucose Intolerance

Rajeev Goyal  1 , Minhthao Nguyen  2 , Ishwarlal Jialal  3
In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2025 Jan.
.
Affiliations
Free Books & Documents
Book

Glucose Intolerance

Rajeev Goyal et al.
Free Books & Documents

Excerpt

Type 2 diabetes is an epidemic affecting people in both developed and developing countries. With the rapid increase in obesity and changes in lifestyle, the number of people diagnosed with diabetes has increased worldwide. In 2010, the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes in adults was 21 million. This number is likely to increase to 86.6 million adults by 2050, a more than 4-times increase over the current prevalence.

Glucose intolerance (GI) can be defined as dysglycemia that comprises both prediabetes and diabetes. It includes the conditions of impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and diabetes mellitus (DM). The focus of this review is on IGT and IFG. People with these conditions have an increased risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD). WHO recommends using the term intermediate hyperglycemia instead of pre-diabetes to avoid the stigma associated with diabetes. Furthermore, not all cases are destined to progress to DM. In fact, the yearly conversion rate appears to range between 5% to 10% with the higher rate for IFG.

The American Diabetes Association (ADA) states that the risk of developing diabetes is continuous and extends below the lower limit of the range while becoming disproportionately greater at the upper limit of the range of for 3 diagnostic tests:

  1. Fasting plasma glucose

  2. The 75-gm oral glucose tolerance test (GTT, 2-hour value)

  3. Glycated hemoglobin (A1C) .

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure: Rajeev Goyal declares no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies.

Disclosure: Minhthao Nguyen declares no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies.

Disclosure: Ishwarlal Jialal declares no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies.

References

    1. American Diabetes Association. 2. Classification and Diagnosis of Diabetes: Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes-2018. Diabetes Care. 2018 Jan;41(Suppl 1):S13-S27. - PubMed
    1. Bansal N. Prediabetes diagnosis and treatment: A review. World J Diabetes. 2015 Mar 15;6(2):296-303. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ferrannini E, Gastaldelli A, Iozzo P. Pathophysiology of prediabetes. Med Clin North Am. 2011 Mar;95(2):327-39, vii-viii. - PubMed
    1. Nathan DM, Davidson MB, DeFronzo RA, Heine RJ, Henry RR, Pratley R, Zinman B, American Diabetes Association Impaired fasting glucose and impaired glucose tolerance: implications for care. Diabetes Care. 2007 Mar;30(3):753-9. - PubMed
    1. Vikram NK, Jialal I. Use of HbA1c in the diagnosis of diabetes and prediabetes: sensitivity versus specificity. Metab Syndr Relat Disord. 2014 Jun;12(5):255-7. - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources