Even if you're a middle-aged adult with no obvious heart risks, having slightly high blood sugar — not quite diabetes — might mean you're more likely to have early signs of heart disease building up in your arteries.

The study found that even in healthy middle-aged people without typical heart risks, higher blood sugar levels (not high enough to be diabetes) were linked to early signs of artery damage, which supports the idea that blood sugar matters for heart health earlier than we thought.