About 84.1 million Americans are pre-diagnosed with diabetes. The condition, called pre-diabetes, is considered as a silent killer because it could lead to deadly diseases including kidney failure.
The fact is, prevention is better than the cure. Making positive changes in your diet and lifestyle is one way to reverse the condition. The good news is, there is a way to decrease your risk of developing full-blown diabetes without using drugs.
Prediabetes, also referred to as impaired glucose tolerance, is the warning shot that says, “Stop now, and turn around.” Typically diagnosed through blood tests, a person is pre-diabetic if blood sugar is above normal, but not high enough for a formal diagnosis of diabetes, when tested on two separate occasions. The range for prediabetes, according to Mayo Clinic, is a fasting blood sugar level of 100 to 125 mg/dL (5.6 to 6.9 mmol/L). When blood sugar hits 126 mg/dL (7 mmol/L) or higher on two tests, a person has diabetes.1
Prediabetes affects a full one-third of adults in America, many of whom show no symptoms. According to Center for Disease Control (CDC) Director Brenda Fitzgerald, M.D., most of these individuals don’t even know they are prediabetic.2 Left untreated, the majority will develop Type 2 diabetes within 5 years. Type 2, or adult-onsetdiabetes, is a serious condition that can lead to kidney failure, heart disease, blindness, neuropathy, leg amputations, and even death. According to the CDC, Type 2 diabetes represents 90% of all diabetes cases in the United States.
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