By Aaron Allen, The Seattle Medium
One in three American adults, about 98 million, has prediabetes. Moreover, more than 8 in 10 people with prediabetes don’t know they have it. Could this be you? Don’t let the “pre” fool you. Prediabetes is a serious health condition that puts you at an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.
Prediabetes is real, common, and, most importantly, reversible. You can prevent or delay prediabetes from turning into type 2 diabetes with simple, proven lifestyle changes.
“Most don’t know that they have elevated blood sugars, which makes the situation more alarming,” said Dr. Subbulaxmi Trikudanathan, medical director for the UW Medicine Diabetes Institute. “Prediabetes is very silent. There can be subtle signs, but often you don’t have any symptoms. And it can develop at any age, so screening is important.”
“We know diabetes runs in families or can be attributed to other risk factors,” Trikudanathan continued. “But there is not a single gene that we have identified as the cause of diabetes. It can be a combination of genetic factors, and that can play a role in prediabetes progressing to type 2 diabetes. The most common type of diabetes is type 2, and type 1 is more common in younger people and children, but it can happen at any time.”
According to Trikudanathan, prediabetes is when one’s blood sugar level is higher than it should be but not high enough for your doctor to diagnose diabetes. Doctors also call it impaired fasting glucose or impaired glucose tolerance.
“We all have this hormone called insulin, which is secreted by the pancreas that sits behind the stomach that produces digestive enzymes and hormones, and one of the hormones is insulin,” Trikudanathan describes. “What insulin does is, when you eat and there is a lot of blood sugar in our system, the sugar is turned on to the cells by insulin, and the cell makes energy. If you have a primary problem in the pancreas, there are antibodies that are destroying those cells that are making insulin; we have what we call insulin deficiency. Your body is not making insulin; this is the state we call Type 1 diabetes, and this type is prevalent in young people and children.”
“What happens with type 2 is our body does not have the ability to be sensitive to the insulin or insulin does not function properly, so our bodies are making more insulin to get rid of that sugar in the blood,” continued Trikudanathan. “So what we have is insulin resistance, that insulin is not effective, the pancreas needs more and more insulin, and at one particular point, the pancreas is exhausted, it cannot compensate by making more and more insulin, and those cells that produce insulin slowly start to die, and so the blood sugar rises and that is when we call it type 2 diabetes.”
If you have prediabetes, you might notice that:
• You’re a lot thirstier than usual.
• You pee a lot.
• Your vision is blurry.
• You’re a lot more tired than usual.
According to Trikudanathan, many environmental influences and factors predispose someone who is genetically programmed to develop diabetes.
“I think one thing that is important to note is that prediabetes is largely silent. It is largely silent; occasionally there are subtle signs, and as it progresses to diabetes, people can experience blurred visions, increased urination, or increased thirst as signs of type 2 diabetes,” says Trikudanathan.
Prediabetes Causes and Risk Factors:
You’re more likely to get prediabetes if you:
• Are older, especially over age 45.
• Have a waist larger than 40 inches around if you’re a man and 35 inches around if you’re a woman.
• Eat a lot of red and processed meat, drink sugary beverages, and don’t eat much fruit, veggies, nuts, whole grains, or olive oil.
• Are Black, Native American, Latino, or Pacific Islander.
• Are overweight or obese, especially if you have extra pounds around your middle (belly fat).
• Have high cholesterol, high triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol, and high LDL cholesterol.
• Don’t exercise.
• Had gestational diabetes or gave birth to a baby who weighed more than 9 pounds.
• Have polycystic ovary syndrome.
• Have a sleep problem, like sleep apnea, or work changing shifts or night shifts.
The most important aspect of combating any disease, but particularly diabetes, is preventive care, screenings. Early detection is key to stabilizing and maintaining this debilitating illness.
“We want to identify [prediabetes early] because we see that as a window of opportunity whereby making lifestyle changes, or taking certain medications, if we do that, then we can delay the progression to diabetes,” says Trikudanathan. “The timeline from prediabetes and the possibility of it turning into type 1 or type 2 diabetes can vary per individual depending on their risk factors. But at least 70 percent of those with prediabetes will develop diabetes in their lifetime but we can delay it over several years.”
Early screening, risk factor identification, and lifestyle changes are key ingredients to battling prediabetes and both type 1 and 2 diabetes. For those at the highest risk, it is vital that you see your doctor to learn what is necessary to help you and your family maintain this disease.
“For those who have risk factors to develop prediabetes, type 1 or type 2 diabetes, we should get them screened,” Trikudanathan advises. “Because one, we know that in prediabetes we can intervene with lifestyle intervention occasionally certain medications and delay the progression to diabetes. Diabetes can cause long term damage to the heart, the kidneys, the eyes, the nerves, and prediabetes can also start causing that long term damage. So, if we identify this, we have that opportunity to delay those changes and I think that is the biggest message.”