Managing prediabetes in practice

In primary care, selective screening for type 2 diabetes is commonly practised. That is, individuals judged to be at high risk of type 2 diabetes (Box 1) and those with other significant cardiovascular risk factors, such as hypertension, hyperlipidaemia and smoking, are screened opportunistically.

General practices will have protocols for managing patients diagnosed with diabetes. However, management may be more variable for those patients whose glycaemic parameters fall into the range defining prediabetes (Table 1), although as described in a previous article in this series, there is considerable evidence for effectively intervening and arresting the progression of the progression of prediabetes to type 2 diabetes.¹