Lifestyle factors, such as food, exercise, stress, and sleep play a role, as do aging, family history and even genetics. Prediabetes is not simply the result of high body weight – though obesity is one underlying cause of insulin resistance.
For people diagnosed with prediabetes who aren't overweight, however, there are fewer evidence-based interventions. Dr. Moin advises those patients to exercise for at least 150 minutes a week, eat a healthy diet and have other health metrics, such as blood pressure and cholesterol, checked regularly.
Even Really Healthy People Are Prone to Diabetes: Here's What You Should Know. We often assume that just because a person is skinny, they're in perfect health. However, even healthy people can develop insulin resistance, a condition that leads to high blood sugar or diabetes.
“But recent studies have shown that 1 in 5 normal-weight adults can be at risk for prediabetes, which if not managed can develop into type 2 diabetes within five years.” The popular perception of a person with diabetes is that they are overweight or obese, or that they were when the disease developed.
This nationally representative study provides evidence of a substantial proportion of individuals with a healthy weight BMI having prediabetes.
The reason is that the main indicators for diabetes risk are: Visceral fat: The hidden fat that lies around the heart, liver, kidney and pancreas. A person who looks relatively slim can have high levels of undetected visceral fat, which could play a key role in the development of diabetes.
It's well established that losing weight if you have prediabetes can prevent the condition from developing into full-blown diabetes. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), losing a modest 5 to 7 percent of your body weight is the magic range.
It's common. And most importantly, it's reversible. You can prevent or delay prediabetes from turning into type 2 diabetes with simple, proven lifestyle changes.
There is no single timeline for reversing prediabetes. For some patients, a return to normal blood sugar levels may come over a few months, while for others, it may take years.
The exact cause of prediabetes is unknown. But family history and genetics appear to play an important role. What is clear is that people with prediabetes don't process sugar (glucose) properly anymore. Most of the glucose in your body comes from the food you eat.
Based on evidence available today, no, stress doesn't directly cause diabetes. However, high cortisol levels caused by stress can impact your blood sugar, weight and eating habits. In other words, stress is one of many factors that can contribute to insulin resistance (prediabetes) and diabetes risk.
Prediabetes is a health condition in which you have higher blood sugar levels than normal but not high enough to be considered diabetes. People with prediabetes have up to a 50% chance of developing diabetes over the next five to 10 years. But you can take steps to prevent Type 2 diabetes from developing.
“The best way to reverse the prediabetes process and for you not to develop Type 2 diabetes is weight loss,” Dr. Avadhanula notes. “As we gain more weight, our cells become more and more resistant to the effects of insulin. And unfortunately, insulin resistance is the first key step in developing Type 2 diabetes.”
Progression from prediabetes to diabetes
Around 5–10% of people with prediabetes become diabetic annually although conversion rate varies by population characteristics and the definition of prediabetes.
Signs and symptoms of type 1 diabetes can appear rather suddenly, especially in children. They may include increased thirst, frequent urination, bed wetting in children who previously didn't wet the bed. Extreme hunger, unintended weight loss, fatigue and weakness, blurred vision, irritability, and other mood changes.
The good news is that prediabetes can be seen as a warning sign—it's the body's way of saying that your insulin levels are rising, but you can still reverse it before developing type 2 diabetes. And reversing the process is key because type 2 diabetes can be a devastating disease.
Avoiding excessive intake of added sugars by limiting sugary beverages, cakes, cookies, candy and snacks. Limiting portion sizes of refined carbohydrate foods such as white bread, white rice and white pasta.
Through HIIT, glucose control is improved more accurately and over a longer period. This form of exercise also helps with lowering abdominal fat and increasing lower-body muscle mass. HIIT exercises like aerobics or interval jogging for about 30 minutes three to five times a week can help to manage prediabetes.
Without taking action, many people with prediabetes could develop type 2 diabetes within 5 years.
Pre-diabetes is a classic case of an artificial diagnosis, a form of disease-mongering that is often now called “overdiagnosis”.
Shilpa said, “Cheating on your healthy diet is never safe if you live with diabetes. Every time you cheat, your blood sugars go out of control for that day and create a ripple effect on the next day or two.
Our results suggest that skipping breakfast is also associated with prediabetes as measured by HbA1c levels, in addition to being associated with elevated blood glucose levels. In addition, our results suggest that the effect of skipping breakfast on glucose metabolism was greater among students with overweight.
Keeping your weight in a healthy range is important for lowering blood sugars and preventing diabetes, so we capped this plan at 2,000 calories per day. If you're looking for a lower calorie level, see this same plan at 1,200 and 1,500 calories.