Pre Diabetes

Foreign. Surprising Truths about Prediabetes it's real, it's common and most importantly, it's reversible. You can prevent the development of diabetes from prediabetes with simple, proven lifestyle changes. About 96 million American adults, I.e. 1 in 3, have prediabetes. What more? About 8 in 10 don't even know they have diabetes. Could that be you? Prediabetes is a big deal. Don't let the pre and prediabetes fool you because it could be a serious condition. People with prediabetes have higher blood sugar than normal, but not high enough to be called diabetes. It puts you at increased risk of developing diabetes and heart disease and stroke. Prediabetes flies under the radar. When you have prediabetes, you can have it for years without any symptoms. This means you likely won't know you have prediabetes until serious health problems show up. Talk to your doctor about getting a blood test if you have any risk factors for prediabetes, and these could be if you are overweight, being 45 years of age and older, having a parent, brother or sister with type 2 diabetes, being physically active less than three times a week, or if you ever had gestational diabetes or diabetes during pregnancy, or giving birth to a baby who weighed more than £9. Race and ethnicity are also factors. Certain races are at high risk. For example Latinos, African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans are at a higher risk. Prediabetes is equal to preventable diabetes. Lose a modest amount of weight, get regular physical activity and your risk goes down. Modest weight loss means 5 to 7% of body weight or 10 to 14 pounds in a 200 pound person. Regular physical activity means getting at least 150 minutes a week of brisk walking or similar activity and that's just 30 minutes a day or five days a week. What are the risks? Although you may not have diabetes, but being borderline diabetic or pre diabetic also puts you at increased risk for blood clots and damaging coronary artery disease. This may lead to cardiovascular disease and stroke. There was a study done in 2016 that was published in British Medical Journal where they looked at 1 million people and found that those with prediabetes were at 13% more likely to have cardiovascular disease, 10% higher risk of coronary artery disease and 6% more likely to have stroke. Now even those with A1C just below prediabetes, which is 5.7%, were more likely to have first two conditions. Taking control to protect your heart if you have Pre diabetes there are many things you can do to protect your heart. Start with a focus on basics. If you smoke, then quit smoking. Keep your blood pressure less than 120 80, keep your LDL less than 100, eat more fruits and vegetables and whole grains and eat foods that have low glycemic index to avoid increasing the blood sugar levels further. The glycemic index tells you how quickly the foods with carbohydrates will raise your blood sugar. The lower the glycemic index, the better it is. Get moving. Exercise also helps. Exercise is also a great way to reduce the risk of heart disease and developing diabetes. If you weigh normal, walk 30 minutes a day, five to six days a week. If you need to lose weight, then try to get at least one hour about six days a week each. Data shows that you really need to walk more than 30 minutes to start losing weight. Prediabetes often comes on without symptoms. Though some people may notice some skin darkening behind their elbows or knees or back of the neck, it is important to recognize it because it can quickly creep up into diabetes and therefore you need to help. Work on protecting your heart, your blood vessels and getting a regular check on your eyes and getting routine blood work. If you have prediabetes, please talk to your doctor and get yourself tested routinely and and take all the steps needed to prevent diabetes. If you're interested in a lifestyle program where you can get help in losing the weight so you do not develop diabetes, or if you have diabetes and you want to reverse it, we can help you. Please give us a call. 530-677-0700. Thank you so much. Sam.