For health organizations such as the American Diabetes Association, they emphatically claim that "there are 20.8 million children and adults in the United States, or 7% of the population, who have diabetes. While an estimated 14.6 million have been diagnosed with diabetes, unfortunately, 6.2 million people or nearly one-third of the population are unaware that they have the disease".
There are approximately more than 20 million Americans who have diabetes. It was also revealed that diabetes is more common in African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
The health organization states that anyone who is 45 years old or older should undergo tests for diabetes. People who are 45 or older and is overweight needs to undergo testing. If one is younger than 45 and overweight, he should consider testing. If one has a parent, brother, or sister with diabetes, then he should consider testing since the disease is definitely genetically passed on to immediate family members.
Researchers also cite that people also need to get a regular aerobic exercise to help regulate blood sugar and to track diabetes by writing down the time and content of each meal, the kind and amount of exercise one gets, the level of energy and if one has a home glucose monitor, it is best to check blood sugar level at least once a day at different times each day
For a diabetic patient, a positive outcome should be verified by any of the aforementioned methods on a separate day, unless there is no suspicion of significantly-elevated glucose levels. Most physicians favor measuring a fasting glucose level since it is easier to measure and the time that is needed to be committed to formal glucose tolerance testing is much more manageable. By definition, two fasting glucose measurements above 126 mg/dL or 7.0 mmol/l is believed to be a correct diagnosis for diabetes mellitus.
The patients who have fasting sugars between 6.1 and 7.0 mmol/l (110 and 125 mg/dL) are believed to have a condition called "impaired fasting glucose" and if the patient’s plasma glucose is at or over 140mg/dL or 7.8 mmol/l two hours after a 75g oral ingestion of glucose, then that patient is considered to have "impaired glucose tolerance".
The concept of "prediabetes" is either impaired fasting glucose or impaired glucose tolerance. The condition of impaired glucose tolerance seems to be much more of a risk factor for the development of adult-onset diabetes mellitus as well as cardiovascular disease.
The measurement of one’s blood fasting sugar level is very relevant because it will be the indicator whether one is in range or diabetes or not. It is therefore quite significant that each patient would be keenly aware and conscious of how well they are doing in terms of their blood fasting sugar measurement. Knowing that would significantly spell the difference between a manageable type of outcome or a diabetes condition that will be out of control. Knowing that will ultimately spell life or death for the patient in the long run.