According to a letter my doctor sent back, my sugar levels were at 145, which is supposed to be above normal. He recommends I come back in for an additional test, and that I eat nothing after dinner the night before. He “suspects” that my test will show my levels as normal the second time around. Now on the one hand, I had a large donut for breakfast that morning, so I wonder if that skewed the results.
Normal fasting blood glucose levels are in the 80-120 range. If you have FBG levels of 126 or higher, and you have no other diagnosis that can explain it, you have diabetes. (For instance, if you are in the middle of a bout of measles, the FBG gets blamed on the measles instead.)
On the other hand, I’m 32 years old and overweight, though not obese (5’6 at 170 lbs.) I’ve also noticed other symptoms, such as going to the bathroom frequently and increased thirst. I get tired easily, but then I don’t get a full 8 hours like I should. I’m also not very physically active, as I work behind a computer most of the time. I also used to suffer from panic attacks, but those are very infrequent now.
Obesity appears to be a result, not a cause, of Type 2 diabetes (the most common kind.) You’ve noticed that you have a lot of other symptoms that diabetics have.
So until I take my second test and receive the results, I have only my own suspicions to work with. Do I have diabetes? Or is it likely that my follow-up test will be normal. And if it is diabetes, is it likely that a simple change in diet and exercise will be enough?
“Do I have diabetes” is actually two questions – do you have a metabolic problem, and is the metabolic problem causing excessive blood sugars. Even if you aren’t (yet) diagnosable as diabetic, you may well have the disorder, and it may be causing damage to your body. Doctors have noted diabetic retinopathy as much as seven years before blood sugars rose enough to diagnose diabetes per se.
A simple change in diet and exercise doesn’t cure diabetes. It doesn’t prevent diabetes, either. It *can* delay the diagnosis, and *may* delay any damage. (And if you delay the problems a hundred years, that should be good enough for anyone, eh? <grin)
Think of diabetes as a problem with your “fight or flight” mechanism. When you are under stress, your body dumps sugar into your blood, so your muscles are ready to act. If you are stuck behind that computer, you can’t burn off that sugar. Your body reacts to those unnecessarily high blood sugar levels by becoming less able to pull sugar into the cells that use it – and *that* is the core problem in Type 2 diabetes.
So think of your diabetes-prevention program as fighting stress. You don’t want to restrict your diet so much as expand it; you *need* a wide variety of different foods to provide all the nutrients your body requires. And exercise is a great way to fight stress. A little more muscle mass will make you heavier, but it’s healthier.
Exercise your brain, too. It’s the largest single item on your body’s energy budget. A few minutes playing a computer game doesn’t exactly erase hours of dealing with other software, but it does make a dent in your stress levels. Remember that coffee breaks were invented by an efficiency expert, in order to get more work from employees, so don’t skip them!
Make a point to get to bed a little earlier. And don’t sleep alone. (THAT is a great stress reliever, too.)
If you have a problem that would eventually lead to diabetes, doing this will probably delay the onset, and reduce the severity. If you don’t have a problem that would eventually lead to diabetes, doing this will probably only make you healthier in other ways, and a little happier – but that’s the risk you take, y’know?