Pre Diabetes - What It Is And What You Can Do About It
While more than 20 million Americans have diabetes, it is estimate that 60 million Americans have a condition known as pre-diabetes, which is also referred to as Impaired Glucose Tolerance (IGT) or Impaired Fasting Glucose (IFG).
People with pre-diabetes have blood-glucose levels that are higher than normal, but are not quite high enough for them to be classified as a diabetic.
A normal blood glucose level for a fasting plasma glucose test is less than 100mg per deciliter, a person is considered to have diabetes if their fasting blood glucose level is above 126mg per deciliter. If your blood glucose level falls between this range you are considered a pre-diabetic.
Similarly a reading between 140 and 199mg der deciliter 2 hours after drinking a glucose rich beverage (known as the oral glucose tolerance test or OGTT) is indicative of pre-diabetes.
The vast majority of people with pre-diabetes show no symptoms, however pre-diabetics do tend to be overweight, have higher than normal blood pressure, and high triglyceride and/or cholesterol levels.
It is estimated that around 50% of pre-diabetics will eventually go on to develop diabetes however the other half manage to stabilize or even reverse the condition so that they fall into the normal blood glucose range again.
Pre-diabetics are recommended to make similar changes to their meal plans as a diabetic would. This includes reducing overall food intake, choosing foods with a low glycemic index (GI), reducing intake of sugary beverages, reducing total fat intake especially from dairy sources such as milk, ice cream, and butter, switching to wholegrain breads and cereals and eating a diet high in fruit and vegetables.
Lifestyle changes such as quitting smoking, increasing exercise levels, and reducing overall body weight are also recommended.
