A silent condition may be taking a toll on your health

Identifying prediabetes early can help you head off diabetes and other long-term health problems.

Many women are living with an unseen health risk — prediabetes, a condition where blood sugar is elevated, but not high enough to meet the threshold for diabetes.

"Although prediabetes affects one in every three adults, nine out every 10 people with prediabetes don't know that they have it," says Dr. Osama Hamdy, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the obesity clinical program at the Joslin Diabetes Center.