You may be at risk for developing type 2 diabetes, but you have the power to prevent it.
“When people are told they have prediabetes, they’re often scared, but they feel the situation is out of their control,” says Lauren Bernstein, RD, a certified diabetes educator with the Diabetes Self- Management Center at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH) Rahway. “And when you feel something’s out of your control, you don’t try to do anything about it.
“The truth is that you can significantly decrease your risk of getting diabetes, just by making some simple changes.” The national Diabetes Prevention Program study found that people who make lifestyle modifications decrease their chances of developing Type 2 diabetes by 58 percent. For people over 60, the number is an impressive 71 percent.
‘I can do that’
“The key to change is awareness,” Bernstein says. “When people are educated about how to prevent diabetes, a lightbulb goes on, and
they think, ‘I can do that.’ “For example, they don’t need to go on a rigid diet, and we’re not asking them to have kale for breakfast. They just need to switch high-carb foods, like juice and cereal, with lower-carb options, like eggs with a piece of multigrain toast and a real orange. That breakfast has a lot fewer carbs, but is still satisfying.” For best results, patients are advised to decrease their weight by 7 percent (“which is not a lot,” Bernstein notes), and to engage in moderate-intensity exercise for 150 minutes a week. That can mean a brisk walk for 30 minutes for five days, or 50 minutes for each of three days— whatever works for you.
Other examples of moderate-intensity exercise include bicycling (slower than 10 miles per hour), ballroom dancing and gardening. In order to know what kind of progress you’re making, you need to be clear on where you started. “I tell people to ask their doctors for the results of their A1C test,” Bernstein says. “It’s a simple blood test that measures your average blood sugar over the past three months.”
A result between 5.7 and 6.4 percent is considered prediabetic. If that’s the case, make an appointment with a certified diabetes educator who can help you with lowering that number. “Here at the Diabetes Self-Management Center, we can teach you everything you need to know to help prevent prediabetes from turning into Type 2 diabetes,” Bernstein says. “The goal is control.”
What is prediabetes?
If your doctor says that you have prediabetes, it means that your blood glucose (blood sugar) levels are too high, but not yet high enough to be called diabetes. Sugar is accumulating in the bloodstream instead of fueling cells that make up muscles and other tissues. Prediabetes is the stage before Type 2 diabetes, which can lead to vision, heart or kidney problems and other serious conditions.
For help with lowering blood sugar, call the RWJUH Rahway Diabetes Self-Management Center at 732.499.6109