Prediabetes is a critical stage which can either lead you to develop full-fledged Diabetes or gives you a fair chance to reverse and go back to normal blood sugar levels. The deciding factor here is awareness and initiating action. What matters here is the direction in which your lifestyle is moving, if you continue to put on weight, no physical activity, erratic sleeping timings, junk foods, addictions, then you will soon move in acceleration towards developing diabetes. If you adopt a healthy lifestyle you will come out of prediabetes stage. A shift in attitude towards health is very important. Monitoring blood sugars as regular interval help determine where you stand.
Prediabetes is defined as a stage where the blood sugars are higher than normal but not as high to be considered as Diabetes.
Prediabetes also refers the following stages
- Impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), which means a higher-than-normal blood sugar 2hours after a meal
- Impaired fasting glucose (IFG), which means a higher-than-normal blood sugar in the morning before eating
- Insulin resistance, which means your body can’t use insulin effectively
Prediabetes may have following symptoms
- Weight gain
- Increased thirst
- Increased urination, especially at night
- Blurry vision
- Sores or cuts that won’t heal
Many people may experience conditions that are associated with insulin resistance, such as polycystic ovarian syndrome, acanthosis Nigerians and skin tags.
First indicator of prediabetes is black lines on the neck (Acanthosis Nigerians) means development of thick, dark and velvety patches of the skin. This is a gradual development and not a sudden development. The main reason for this development is the increasing body fat. This may be present at very young age, with normal weight, waist and normal sugar – insulin levels.
This discoloration of skin usually occurs around the:
Next stage is getting hypoglycemia or craving for sweet food articles after meals. Later sweet craving occurs throughout the day. If blood sugars are checked surprisingly they are very low and sometimes post meal sugar reading lower than fasting blood sugar. They think that they are suffering from low sugar and deliberately take more sweet foods articles (chocolate etc) and put on more weight and waist. If insulin level is checked, initially it shows very high readings and later low levels (both post meal/post glucose and fasting). Insulin level guides better when fasting and post meal sugars are low. Therefore, checking insulin level predicts prediabetes state in spite of low blood sugar levels.
|Post Meal Hypo||+||++||+++||+ or absent|
|Hypo full day||–||+||++||+ or absent|
|FBS||Normal or low||Low||Low or Normal||Normal or IFG|
|Post Prandial||Normal or low||Low||Low or Lower than fasting||Normal or IGT|
|Fasting Insulin||Normal or High||Normal or High||Normal or low||Low|
|Post Prandial Insulin||Normal or High||Normal or High||Normal or low||Low|
Treatment does not involve a short fast paced patch up work. It involves sincere dedicated actions done with love for your own body and self. It’s a nature to be adopted for lifelong. Prediabetes gives you an opportunity to undo all the wrong lifestyle habits and also protects you from developing heart, brain, kidney related diseases which again has obesity as a seed.