Maastricht: When type 2 diabetes is diagnosed, serious
complications such as damage to the retina, kidneys, heart nerves and
brain may already exist. What all these complications have in common is
small blood vessel damage, which has showed to be present already in the
preliminary stage of diabetes, referred to as prediabetes. This discovery, made by doctors and researchers at Maastricht UMC+ as
part of the Maastricht Study (De Maastricht Studie), has far-reaching
consequences. The main consequence is namely that measures have to be
taken much sooner, in fact during the prediabetes stage. Given the fact
that almost 25% of people in the Netherlands between 40 and 75 years of
age have prediabetes, a large number of whom will actually develop type 2
diabetes, this is a health problem that must not be underestimated.