Prediabetics with healthy lifestyle can revert to normoglycaemia

Healthy lifestyle factors promote the reversion to normal glucose regulation in people with prediabetes, a recent study has found. However, such factors cannot explain variability in reversion in different subtypes of prediabetes.

Using data from The Cohort study in Primary Health Care on the Evolution of Patients with Prediabetes, the researchers enrolled 1,184 individuals (aged 30–74 years) deemed to be prediabetic. Depending on the definition, participants were divided into three prediabetic groups: group 1 (fasting plasma glucose [FPG] 100–125 mg/dL), group 2 (glycated haemoglobin [HbA1c] 39–47 mmol/mol), and group 3 (both FPG and HbA1c impaired).

Overall, 165 participants reverted to normal glucose regulation by year 3, yielding a reversion rate of 17.4 percent. Stratifying by type of prediabetes, reversion was highest in group 1, with a rate of 31 percent. This was followed by group 2 (24.4 percent) and, distantly, by group 3 (7.9 percent).

Multivariate logistic regression analysis found that lifestyle factors were important indicators of reversion. Those who were normal weight, for example, were nearly twice as likely to revert to normoglycaemia than their overweight/obese comparators (odds ratio [OR], 1.90, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.20–3.01).

Similarly, participants who were more physically active, had better adherence to the Mediterranean diet, and had no abdominal obesity were more likely to revert.

Type of prediabetes was also an important factor for reversion, such that participants in groups 1 and 2 were significantly more likely to revert than their group 3 counterparts. Notably, adjusting the models for lifestyle factors did not attenuate the significant impact of prediabetes subtype on reversion, suggesting that other factors may account for this variability.