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What Is the Glucose Number for Borderline Diabetes?

Borderline diabetes is a stage in the potential development of diabetes when there is too much glucose in your blood, but not enough that you are diagnosed as diabetic. An elevated blood glucose level is a risk factor for becoming diabetic.

  1. Identification

    • Doctors use the same tests to diagnose borderline diabetes and diabetes. Based on the results, you are diagnosed as normal, pre-diabetic, or diabetic.

    Types

    • The oral glucose tolerance test measures your blood glucose level after you fast and then drink a high-glucose liquid. If your blood glucose level is 140 to 200 mg/dl during this test, you are borderline, or pre-diabetic.

      The intravenous or fasting plasma glucose test measures the amount of glucose in your blood after an injection of glucose into your bloodstream. If your blood glucose level is 100 to 126 mg/dl during this test, you are borderline, or pre-diabetic.

    Fun Fact

    • Mg stands for milligrams. Dl stands for deciliter. One hundred mg/dl (100 mg/dl) means that your blood glucose level is equivalent to having 100 milligrams of glucose in one deciliter of blood.

    Significance

    • Learning that your blood glucose level is borderline is an opportunity to prevent a serious disease. If you are borderline, lose weight, get regular exercise and eat well. You might never become diabetic.

    Expert insight

    • Many health care professionals do not like to differentiate between borderline diabetes and diabetes because people often do not take "borderline" or 'pre-diabetic" seriously.

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