Treating Pre-Diabetes

by Aimee Amodio | More from this Blogger

09 Sep 2009 10:04 AM

A diagnosis of pre-diabetes can be a serious wake up call. Pre-diabetes means that you have elevated blood sugar levels, but they aren't quite high enough to be considered diabetes... yet. According to the American Diabetes Association, more than a tenth of people diagnosed with pre-diabetes end up dealing with the full version of the disease within a year.

There are two main things you can do to treat pre-diabetes and prevent going into full diabetes: make changes to your diet and increase your activity.

Making a lifestyle change works -- the Diabetes Prevention Program study from the American Diabetes Association found that thirty minutes of moderate activity combined with as little as a five percent reduction in body weight produced nearly sixty percent fewer cases of full blown diabetes.

Yes, there are some medications that can delay the development of diabetes if you are pre-diabetic. But the diet and exercise combo seems to be the stronger choice.

According to the National Diabetes Education Program (part of the National Institutes of Health), nearly twenty-four MILLION Americans have diabetes. Here are the three steps they suggest to prevent pre-diabetes from turning into diabetes:

• Set a weight loss goal. If you can lose between five and ten percent of your total body weight, you improve your chances of avoiding diabetes. For a 200 pound person, that's 10-20 pounds.
• Move more. Thirty minutes per day, five days a week. And you don't have to do it all in one chunk -- ten minutes of activity throughout the day works just as well. If you want to stick with it, make sure your activity is fun. Play with the kids, take the dog for a hike, go dancing.
• Make healthy food choices. Eat a balanced diet -- use the whole food pyramid, not just the good parts. If you're looking to lose weight, reduce calories and pick lower-fat options over higher-fat ones.

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Aimee is a fiction writer... dog lover... music lover...

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