Pre-diabetes and How to Manage Risk Factors
Preventing or delaying type 2 diabetes, even if you’re high risk, is possible!
Diabetes is a chronic health condition that affects how your body turns food into energy, and about 90-95% of people with diabetes have type 2.
Your body breaks down most of the food you eat into glucose and releases it into your bloodstream. Once your blood sugar goes up, it signals your pancreas to release insulin, which allows the blood sugar into your body’s cells for energy.
With type 2 diabetes, your body can’t use insulin properly. Therefore, there’s too much blood sugar in your bloodstream, which can, over time, cause serious health problems.
Pre-diabetes occurs before type 2, which can be reversed through proven achievable lifestyle changes.
Pre-diabetes is incredibly common; 96 million US adults have it, which means their blood sugar levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be diagnosed with type 2.
You can have pre-diabetes for years but have no clear symptoms, so it’s important to talk to your doctor about getting your blood sugar tested regularly if you have any of the risk factors, which include:
- Being overweight
- Being 45 years or older
- Having a parent, brother or sister with type 2 diabetes
- Being physically active less than 3 times a week
- Ever having gestational diabetes or giving birth to a baby who weighed more than 9 pounds
- Having polycystic ovary syndrome
Discovering how to manage stress, stay motivated, eat healthy and fit more physical activity into your day are all ways to lower your risk by as much as 58%. Just losing a small amount of weight if you’re overweight can help, too.
Wood County Hospital offers a Diabetes Education Program that can assess and educate on self-management of diabetes.
For more information or to schedule an appointment, please call (419) 354-8863.