At risk for diabetes? Here’s how long you should delay progression to preserve long-term health

Four more years!

Prediabetes patients should try to delay the onset of diabetes by at least four years to significantly lower their risk of early death and complications such as heart attack or stroke, a new study finds.

With prediabetes, a person’s blood sugar is above average — but not high enough for a Type 2 diabetes diagnosis. A whopping 98 million American adults — more than one in three — are estimated to have prediabetes.

The goal for prediabetes patients is to exercise and eat a healthy diet to avoid getting diabetes.

Diabetes has been linked to a host of conditions, including heart attack, stroke and kidney failure.

For this new study, published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine, researchers in China examined the health of 540 prediabetic patients over three decades.

Participants were assigned to a control group or a lifestyle intervention group — one followed a healthy diet, the second exercised more, and the third did a combination of the two.

The researchers found that the longer a prediabetic person can delay developing diabetes, the better their chances are for long-term health.

Even maintaining prediabetic status for four years is beneficial; however, the researchers did not see a protective effect under the four-year threshold.

An estimated 38.4 million Americans have diabetes.

A recent report warned that the diabetes rate is expected to rise from 16.3% to 26.8% of the population by 2050 because people aren’t exercising enough or eating healthfully.