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You Can Turn Prediabetes Into Good News

So, your doctor told you that you have prediabetes. That can’t be good news. Right?

Actually, you can turn a prediabetes diagnosis into a positive. That is, if you follow the lifestyle recommendations your doctor offers. With lifestyle changes, it’s possible to reverse prediabetes and prevent it from leading to full-blown diabetes and the serious health risks that go with it. These include heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, eye diseases, skin infections, and nerve damage.

Prediabetes vs. Diabetes

To understand this, it’s helpful to know the difference between prediabetes and type 2 diabetes (the most common form of diabetes, often referred to as adult onset diabetes).

With diabetes your body is unable to use sugar from the food you eat. This is because your body doesn’t produce enough insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas that turns the sugar into energy your body requires to function.

Prediabetes, as its name implies, precedes development of type 2 diabetes. In prediabetes, insulin is still available to convert sugar to energy, but not as effectively as normal. So, blood sugar levels of people with prediabetes rise, but not as high as the blood sugar levels of people with diabetes.

The body responds to the diminishing effectiveness of insulin by producing more insulin in an attempt to bring blood sugar to a normal level. But over time, as you use all of the insulin your body produces, diabetes develops.

The Link To Metabolic Syndrome

Elevated blood sugar is one of five risk factors associated with metabolic syndrome, a condition that raises risk for heart disease and stroke. The other risk factors are high blood pressure, obesity, low HDL (good cholesterol), and high blood triglycerides.

“While not facing the potentially fatal conditions that a person with diabetes faces, those with prediabetes are still at risk for serious health problems,” says family physician Isaac Corney, MD.

The most important way for a person with prediabetes to prevent it from becoming type 2 diabetes is to eat a healthier diet.

And without lifestyle changes to improve their health, 15 to 30 percent of people with prediabetes will develop type 2 diabetes within five years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

How To Reverse Prediabetes

“The most important way for a person with prediabetes to prevent it from becoming type 2 diabetes is to eat a healthier diet,” Dr. Corney says. He recommends avoiding processed sugars, eating more lean meats, vegetables, and complex carbohydrates, and limiting calorie intake.

This, along with physical activity, can lead to weight loss, which is critical to reversing prediabetes and preventing diabetes. Ask your doctor for recommendations of a healthy weight-loss plan for you.

“If a person loses 10 to 15 pounds they can decrease their prognosis for developing diabetes by 50 percent,” Dr. Corney said. “Exercising 30 minutes a day at least five days a week is also one of the best ways to help prevent prediabetes from becoming diabetes.”

And while following your physician’s plan to reverse prediabetes, you should have your blood sugar checked every one to two years — to make sure you’re making progress and that you’re not at risk for developing type 2 diabetes.

Source: Isaac Corney, MD, Trotwood Physician Center; American Diabetes Association; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Isaac Corney, MD

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