Prevalence of the Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) has been rising in the whole word. It is assumed that before DM2 develops, patients undergo a stadium of impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) or they have impaired fasting glycaemia (IFG). The confirmed IFG or IGT represent strong predictors of DM2 manifestation and at the same time they are related with high cardiovascular risk, namely with IGT. Other significant risk factor (RF) of DM2 is the obesity and metabolic syndrome. Recent clinical studies have shown that some metabolic abnormalities, which precede development of DM2 can be positively influenced by the lifestyle changes, including improvement of the diet and increasing the physical activity. Such measures can prevent or at least to delay the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus and thus the development of cardiovascular diseases. Positive effect has also the administration of some drugs, already tested in clinical studies, namely glitasons, metromin, inhibitor of ACE, sartans and other.

        Key words: type 2 diabetes mellitus, impaired glucose tolerance, metabolic syndrome, obesity, lifestyle changes, diabetes prevention.