The point of no return

I've noted in my practice that people go for years with slightly abnormal, gradually increasing, blood sugars, a state known as impaired fasting glucose. Then abruptly and suddenly, they plunge into diabetes. Phoenix doctors, analyzing blood sugar data over years of studying Pima Indians (an ethnic group known for high prevalence of diabetes) confirmed this pattern.

A consistent trend was apparent in those individuals who became diabetic over the course of the analysis. Blood sugar at first rose in an even, linear sort of way, then turned upward with a rapid exponential rate.

The timeframe of this latter change may be very rapid for some individuals - beyond our ability to detect with biennial exams, meaning that some individuals transition from a normal to a diabetic state in less than 2 years, and how much less we do not know.
---Dr. Clinton Mason, National Institutes of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases

Dr. Mason theorizes that interventions could prevent this rapid final rise of blood sugars into the diabetic range, thus delaying for years that dangerous development.