Catch Susan at the Flagler Beach Library, 1 PM, Thursday February 18, 2010
Pre-diabetes is a condition in which the blood glucose levels of a person are higher than normal but not quite high enough for a diagnosis of diabetes. Also known as impaired fasting glucose (IFG) or impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), it's estimated that up to 54 million Americans in the United States have pre-diabetes. That number is conservative, because health experts say that more than 16 million have undiagnosed diabetes, so to me, that means many more are at immediate risk, and haven't been tested.
If you have pre-diabetes or IFG, you have higher than normal odds of eventually getting diabetes. In fact, it is often a pre-cursor to diabetes as a person nearly always has pre-diabetes before he gets diabetes. A person with pre-diabetes is also more prone to developing heart disease and strokes.
However, all is not lost, even if your fasting blood sugar is greater than 100 mg/dL, but less than 126. You can take steps today to make your cells more insulin receptive, to make your body act more "normal" in response to eating carbohydrate. It's in your everyday choices, modifying your usual choices to make them healthier, increasing activity daily. You can reduce risk, today, and keep up the momentum as you feel better, have more energy, sleep better too.
Here's the revelation! Being thin and healthy, eating what you like yet liking yourself, and controlling your weight without fixating on it for the rest of your life is not about natural gifts, but about the gift of knowing how.
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