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I’m sure you’ve all heard of diabetes – maybe you’re relatively familiar with it, maybe you know someone who has it, or maybe you yourself have it. But do you know what prediabetes is?
If you don’t, pay attention, because you should. Prediabetes may not be full-on diabetes, but it’s still serious. One scary statistic? A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that 90 percent of people who have prediabetes don’t know they have it. That means that out of the 79 million people in the United States who have prediabetes, 9 out of 10 of them have no idea about their condition. That is kind of terrifying.
So what is it? Most people who develop type 2 diabetes first have prediabetes. This means that their blood glucose levels are higher than normal, but not exactly high enough to be officially diagnosed as diabetes. Once you have prediabetes, you’re at a much higher risk for developing type 2 diabetes. The problem with not knowing you have it is that then you have no idea that you should be taking steps to reduce your risk of getting type 2 diabetes – and if you’re not doing anything to prevent diabetes, you’re obviously more at risk of getting it.
Probably the biggest reason people don’t realize they have prediabetes is because there usually aren’t any symptoms that go along with it. It may be helpful to keep in mind the common symptoms of diabetes, which include: unusual thirst, frequent urination, blurred vision, extreme fatigue, cuts and bruises that are slow to heel, tingling and numbness in your hands and feet and recurring infections.
The only way to know for sure if you have prediabetes is to get a doctor to test you for it. Some of the risk factors for prediabetes are being overweight, having high blood pressure, having low HDL cholesterol and high triglycerides, a family history of diabetes or belonging to an ethnic or minority group that is typically at a high risk for diabetes. If you fall into any of these categories, you might want to consider asking your doctor to test you, just to be on the safe side.
The good news is that having prediabetes doesn’t mean you’re automatically going to get type 2 diabetes. If you do have prediabetes, stay on top of things by making sure you’re getting checked for type 2 diabetes every one or two years. You can also lower your risk of type 2 diabetes by losing 7 percent of your body weight and exercising moderately about five days a week.
As anyone who has or knows someone with type 2 diabetes can tell you, diabetes is no joke. If you think you’re at risk for prediabetes or type 2 diabetes, you should do what you can to prevent it. Keep the risk factors mentioned above in mind and if any of them apply to you, get tested and watch your weight. Even if this doesn’t apply to you right now, staying informed about this type of stuff is still really important.
Do you know anyone who has type 2 diabetes or prediabetes? Do you have any type of diabetes? How do you deal with it? Tell us in the comments.
What is diabetes – and could you have it?
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