If you have prediabetes, do something about it now

Before people develop type 2 diabetes, they typically have prediabetes or impaired fasting blood glucose. If your blood sugar level is over 100 mg/dL (5.5 mmol) but less than 126 mg/dL (7 mmol), you're considered to have prediabetes.

Prediabetes/diabetes has developed into a worldwide epidemic. There are 57 million people in the United States alone who have prediabetes and most don't know it, according to the American Diabetes Association.

Sorry to say, many people who think they're "borderline diabetic" or have "a touch of diabetes" think that they're safe. However, research has revealed that some long-term damage is being done to the body, especially to the heart and circulatory system.

Risk factors for prediabetes and diabetes:

• You're overweight or obese. This can keep your body from making and using insulin properly. Being overweight can also cause high blood pressure.
• You have a parent, brother or sister with diabetes. If you have a relative with type 2 diabetes, this more than doubles your risk of getting the disease.
• You're African-American, American Indian, Asian-American, Pacific Islander or of Hispanic/Latino heritage.
• You had gestational diabetes or gave birth to at least one baby who weighed more than 9 pounds (4.1 kilograms).
• You have high blood pressure.
• Your HDL or "good" cholesterol is below 35 mg/dL (0.9 mmol/L) or your triglyceride level is above 250 mg/dL (2.83 mmol/L).
• You exercise fewer than three times a week.

Diagnosis

You can have prediabetes and not know it. Two tests are commonly used to diagnose prediabetes:

• Fasting blood glucose. Measures blood glucose first thing in the morning before you eat. A normal fasting blood glucose is between 70 to100 mg/dL (3.8 to 5.5 mmol). You have prediabetes if your fasting blood sugar is 101 to 125 mg/dL (5.6 to 6.9 mmol).
• Oral glucose tolerance test. Measures blood glucose after fasting and again 2 hours after drinking a glucose-rich drink. Normal blood glucose is below 140 mg/dL (7.7 mmol) 2 hours after the drink. In prediabetes, the 2-hour blood glucose is 140 to 199 mg/dL (7.8 to 11.0 mmol/L). If the 2-hour blood glucose rises to 200 mg/dL (11.1 mmol) or above, you have diabetes.

If you have prediabetes, you should do something about it. Studies have shown that people with prediabetes can prevent or delay the development of type 2 diabetes by up to 58 percent through changes to their lifestyle, including modest weight loss (as little as 5 to 7 percent of your current weight) and increasing physical exercise.

Diabetes the World Over

Diabetes is one of the major causes of death in the world and unfortunately it is increasingly affecting us more than we realize. The expenditure on diabetes alone is in the billions with an estimate of 347 million people having diabetes in 2008.

Millions of people in Asia alone, mainly China and India, have this terrible disease, however that may not seem alarming enough for most people. To put it into perspective, a recent study by the United Health Group claimed that it may take more than $22000 per year to treat a single diabetic.

Putting this information together with the amount of people with the fact that an ever increasing number of people, currently in the hundreds of millions, may cause even an economically advancing country like China reverse back on its economic growth. The rather interesting fact about diabetes is that the most common form of this disease, Type 2 diabetes, may be caused by obesity and the inactive lifestyle that most Americans have adopted.

This form of diabetes is avoidable and makes one wonder about the costs that can be avoided if only a fraction of the people suffering from Type 2 diabetes can be made to improve their lifestyles and eating habits. The problem, however, lies with identifying pre-diabetics before going on to help them avoid diabetes altogether. Many countries are now conducting mass screenings for their public to find people close to falling prey to diabetes in order to save money by avoiding the treatment costs of diabetes.

This is a rather cumbersome task as there are many problems that come in the way of managing such a monumental task properly, such as the amount of time it takes to screen a huge amount of people, the sheer task of managing such a large amount of tests, the lack of a large enough staff that is adequately trained and so on. The main method to identify diabetes in a person is a blood glucose test. However this method is not suitable for the masses as it requires the person being tested to fast for 10 hours before the actual test, not to mention the doubtfulness of the test itself

worldwide are therefore looking for ways to help people avoid diabetes. In America alone, around 79 million people are living their lives without knowing that they are pretty close to getting diabetes. If these people can be made to avoid diabetes then America and its public health care system and insurance companies can avoid spending huge amounts of money for the treatment of diabetes. It is upon us to improve our lifestyles and eating habits in order to lead a life without the unimaginable burden of diabetes which would help save a huge amount of money and even more importantly help us lead a better life.

Learn to Diet to Control Your Diabetes

Diabetes is affecting more and more people the world over. In America alone, millions of people are suffering and yet millions are unaware of the fact that they are edging closer and closer to diabetes. This is not surprising considering the rather lazy lifestyles that most of us have adopted and the harmful reliance on junk food that we have allowed to dominate over our eating habits.

Changing only two things about our lives can help us avoid or control diabetes; firstly we need to move into a more active lifestyle and even more importantly we need to organize our diet and eat healthy.  Eating healthy does not mean throwing all the goodies away and preparing our kitchens for carrot soup every day. Eating healthy has more to do with a balanced diet than anything else.

The first step into a balanced and healthy diet is to eat consistently without eating too much.Cut down your meal sizes into half and eat 6 meals instead of 3 throughout the day. This will keep your body efficiently burning the carbohydrates away and your blood sugar stable. Any good diet, with or without the need to control or prevent diabetes needs to have well proportioned and timely meals.

The second step is to keep moderation in mind. You do not need to throw away all the carbohydrates; rely on unprocessed food rather than foods that contain simple sugar. This will keep your energy level stable over a period of time and your blood sugar stable as well. You also do not need to shun your favorite deserts either. It is a good idea to not keep any in your fridge or kitchens; you do not want to be thinking about that brownie just a few steps away. Limit your deserts and treats to special occasions or at the very least make sure you have to go out of your way to get your hands on them.

The third step is to substitute harmful foods with healthy ones that taste just as good if not better. Substitute pies with fruit and sodas with sparkling water. You might not like the sound of this but when you see pounds of fat disappear and your body feeling much better; you are going to realize it was worth it.

Following these three steps and incorporating them into your diet will ensure that you stay at a safe distance from diabetes and unexplainable hassle and costs that come along with it.