Diabetes is considered as a major challenge to the public health system in India. Recent articles clearly mention that the hidden danger in the form of prediabetes and undiagnosed diabetes is greatly adding to the burden silently. Awareness regarding the same, particularly among youth, can help diagnose the condition very early and thus, initiate early management.

With an aim to estimate the frequency of prediabetes and undiagnosed diabetes in the adult population, a camp was organized in our institute to screen the adults in our locality by estimating fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c).

A total of 246 individuals were selected for analysis after excluding the known diabetic cases. Height, weight, pulse, blood pressure (BP), waist circumference, and body mass index (BMI) were measured. Plasma fasting sugar and fasting serum lipid profile were analyzed. The HbA1c was estimated in hyperglycemic subjects.

The frequency of hyperglycemia in the study population was found to be 28%. The total frequency of prediabetes was 18.3% and that of undiagnosed diabetes was 9.75%. The raised sugar could be significantly associated with age, waist circumference, BMI, hypertriglyceridemia, and cholesterol-to-high-density lipoprotein (Chol:HDL) ratio. Aging, greater BMI, hypertriglyceridemia, and raised low-density lipoprotein (LDL) depicted significant odds ratio (OR) to predict the risk factor for diabetes.

The hidden burden of diabetes in our locality is quite high, which, if not taken care, would result in a public health catastrophe.

Patel S, Nanda R, Abraham J, Sahoo S, Ganguly A, Mohapatra E. Prediabetes and Undiagnosed Diabetes Mellitus: The Hidden Danger. Indian J Med Biochem 2017;21(2):91-95.