What You Need to Know if You Have Prediabetes

A client recently recounted that “he was told he had pre-diabetes but since it wasn’t diabetes, he figured it was nothing.”

Pre-diabetes is “not nothing.” It is definitely “something.”

Pre-diabetes is defined as when your glucose levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be diabetes. See the table below for details..

Diagnostic Criteria for Prediabetes and Diabetes

Pre-diabetes is the leading risk factor for diabetes but not everyone gets diabetes. If you have been told you have pre-diabetes, now is the time to make changes to prevent developing diabetes.

By making the proper changes it is even occasionally possible to reverse pre-diabetes. If you do nothing you increase your risk of progressing to diabetes, which is treatable, but irreversible.

Here’s what happens when insulin and glucose work together normally:

When everything is working normally, your pancreas makes insulin and your body’s cells respond to it by opening up to move excess glucose from your blood into the cells where it is used for energy or stored for later.

Here’s what leads to Pre-diabetes:

Before you get pre-diabetes you probably have insulin resistance. Insulin acts like a key and unlocks your cells so that glucose can pass into them. When your cells don’t respond properly to the insulin, and “resists” penetration, the pancreas makes more insulin to compensate. Because your body is capable of producing a lot of insulin you may have normal blood sugars despite having insulin resistance.

Eventually however, the pancreas can’t continue to make extra insulin, blood glucose becomes elevated, and you may develop pre-diabetes. As time goes on, insulin production continues to decrease further causing glucose to reach diabetes levels.

In addition to pre-diabetes and Type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance causes other problems:

• high triglycerides
• low LDL-cholesterol
• fatty liver
• high blood pressure
• blood vessel damage
• inflammation

You can, and should do something about insulin resistance!

Here’s what we know improves insulin resistance:

1. Physical activity: Every time you exercise your cells are more sensitive (less resistant) to insulin, and the effect can last for hours afterwards. Consistency is key to get the ongoing benefit.

2. Healthy diet: Try switching to a diet heavy on plant based foods, reduce added sugar and limit your saturated and trans fats.

Watch this 10 minute video for quick and easy meals.

3. Weight loss (if you’re overweight): It doesn’t have to be a lot. A 5-7% weight loss is enough to make a significant difference. That’s 10-14 pounds for a 200 pound person.

4. Sleep: Aim for 7-8 hours a night.

So you see, you really are lucky that you know you have pre-diabetes! You get to see the red flag waving.

Most people don’t get that warning and go on to develop diabetes. To state the obvious, once you get diabetes, it is both expensive to treat and difficult to control. Don’t ignore the gift you’ve been given. Make changes now!

If you want to improve your insulin resistance and get healthier, join me in my class, “Control Your Diabetes Control Your Life.” I’ll share all the details on what to do and how to make lasting changes that stick. I would love to have you!