New Recommendations for Patients with Pre-Diabetes

Author: Allie Montgomery

Prevention is the best medicine. Nip a disease in the bud, before it is full-blown, and you may just avoid a lifetime of insulin and doctor visits. Pre-diabetes is one condition that fits this category, and an expert medical committee has been meeting to come up with the best advice for these patients.

Approximately 57 million people in the U.S. today suffer from pre-diabetes, which is why the committee, comprised of the American College of Endocrinology and the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, and has been in session in Washington D.C. recently coming up with helpful recommendations.

Pre-diabetics need to meet the condition head on, not dust it under the rug. If you are diagnosed with this condition you need to be aggressive about dealing with it now, and not wait until it gets worse. With pre-diabetes, the blood sugar levels are well above normal but not yet high enough to be classified as diabetes. However, pre-diabetes isn't harmless, it can make diabetes and its numerous complications more likely to happen. Also, pre-diabetes is a risk for your heart as well.

Next, focus on your lifestyle. According to committee member Yehuda Handelsman (MD, FACP, FACE, and a medical doctor from the Metabolic Institute of America), "Lifestyle is the first way to go." Here are some steps that you can take to maintain a healthy lifestyle:

• You can lose 5 to 10 percent of your body weight and keep it off.
• Try to get 30-60 minutes of moderate physical activity at least 5 days a week.
• Try a low fat diet with an adequate amount of dietary fiber.
• To lower your blood pressure, you could cut back on sodium and do not drink excessive amounts of alcohol.
• Unless you have a medical reason that prevents you from taking aspirin, take it everyday (consult your doctor first).
• Try and get your blood pressure and cholesterol levels down to normal levels recommended for patients with diabetes.

Third, you can take medication, if it is warranted. If a lifestyle change is not enough to reduce of your risk of heart disease and diabetes, medication may help. However, you still need to keep on track with the healthy lifestyle changes.

Try not to get hung up on the diabetes numbers. According to the committee chairman and professor at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Alan Garber (MD, PhD, FACE), the blood sugar benchmarks for diagnosing patients with diabetes are "somewhat arbitrary." If your blood sugars are outside of the normal range, you should have enough of a cue to take immediate action.

The committee has also called for further research to find out which pre-diabetes patients are considered to be at the highest risk, and also to study drug treatments for pre-diabetes. Various drug companies sponsored the work that the committee has done so far.