Just diagnosted with pre-diabets

[pile1957]

Hello all,

Went in for yearly checkup about 1 year late, and my doctor found that my BG was slightly elevated ran an A1C and told me that I was a 5.8, Diabetes just around the corner.

He told me to go on the South Beach immediately and loose 20 pounds with exercise, as I am about 20 pounds over weight now. Also wants me to come back in 6 months.

Just have a couple of questions.

Can I get this under control with diet and exercise?

I am 50 years old and have been fit up off and on since my 20s. YO YO dieter and workouts.

Based on what I have heard A1C should be run every three months, is that ture?

And as always any advise out there.

PS: have not diabetes in my family but do have high HDL and LDL. HDL undercontrol with crestor and zetia.

[xMenace]

Welcome.

The cause: poor diet and low activity.
The fix: eat well and get active.

Simple huh?

I am starting to follow Michael Pallan's thinking: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Michael Pollan - In Defense of Food (http://www.michaelpollan.com/indefense.php)

The most important thing you can do IMO is make sites like this a regular stop. There is so much to learn and think about.

Think of yourself as a type 2. This pre stuff is only used to make you feel good. You do need to make changes and stick with them.

A quarterly A1C is needed for us advanced types. I'm not sure about you.

[morrisma]

Diabetes is a chronic, progressive disease. It only gets worse.

That said, you can do a lot to slow the onset of more serious symptoms and complications. Diet & exercise are key. John recommends real food in small quantities, others go ultra-low carb.

Diets are rarely effective if they force too much change too fast. At age 50, with the early warning you got, you could live well & symptom-less for years - well into those 'advanced' years. :D

Start reading food labels and recognizing where the carbs are coming from. Work to minimize those. Eat smaller portions with high carbs. Find low carb substitutes for those things you consume in excess. Go slow & have a goal of healthier eating. Make sure the doc does that A1c regularly.

[pile1957]

Thanks guys I appriciate it.

Will follow your advice.

[Ronin]

Hi Pile1957!

Welcome to the club nobody ever wanted to join, and welcome to DF!

Your experience is not at all unusual. It is not uncommon for people 50+ to get the infamous Pre-Diabetes diagnosis. You will find that it is a diagnosis that is highly (and sometimes hotly) disputed.

A bit of background: This diagnosis is fairly new and was intended to catch young people who were headed towards youthful onset of Type-2 diabetes. The unintended consequence is that a lot of the over-50 crowd has been swept up in the meantime. You are one of them.

Your MD's advice is good, with a caveat. Super strict commercial diet plans like Southbeach and Atkins do actually work, but only for a very short time. Few people can sustain a life-long commitment to these plans. However, they can be used for rapid weight loss.

Can you control your Blood Glucose (BG) levels with diet modifiation and exercise? Yes you can and there are loads of us here on DF that do it (although, being human, we sometimes fall off our plans from time-to-time).

Now I will make my standard recommendations:

1. Read Know Your Numbers, Outlive Your Diabetes by Jackson and Tendrich

2. Ask your MD to do a Fasting C-Peptide test at your next blood test. This is imporant because a lot of us over 50 people are really sufferning from low insulin levels and the MD's, thinking we are Type-2 (Insulin Resistant and produce scads of insulin but it doesn't work), put us through a regimine of all kinds of drugs with various side effects all to increase our sensitiviy to insulin when we don't have sufficient insulin to start with. If the MD want an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT) make sure they include C-Peptide readings as that will tell how well your pancreas is producing insulin. This will help you avoid a lot of trial-and-error drug therapies.

3. Regarding the HbA1c test: The medical reasoning (perhaps insurance company reasoning as well) is that this is a 90 day average. What is not said is that this is a 90 day [I]weighted average, skewed heavily towards the most recent four to six weeks. I use a home test kit (Biosafe -- available through Amazon) and do this test monthly (see my signature block) as it is the best indiactor of how you are progressing.

4. Relax: This diagnosis is not a death sentance. It is, at best, a wake-up-call telling you to change your lifestyle -- eat better, exercise more, and take care of yourself.

5. Participate in the various sub-forums and get hints and tips from the members. Our experience may help you prevent problems further down the line.

6. If your MD hasn't suggested it, get a BG meter and start testing yourself. The only way to know what does, does not work for you is to test-test-test-test. You, not your MD, are in charge here.

[Larry H.]

We were all in the same boat when we got here. Numbers too high but not quite type II. Wanted to avoid worse problems as long as possible and some have a goal of doing it though diet and exercise.

If you go to a site such as "medline" it will have information from numerous groups as to how to eat correctly and basic information. So far the best knowledge shows that "diet and exercise" is the most effective way to keep your situation in check in the early stages. Twice as effective as medication, a point not often pointed out here.

I had the same situation, about 25 pounds over where I might have been. I couldn't seem to loose weight like I did in my younger days. But when faced with a possible serious health problem I was able to easily reduce my carbs to the recommended amounts of 50 or less and 70 or less for breakfast and dinner, supper, with small snacks several times a day. I lost 35 pounds with that and exercise by walking a half and hour most days more others. I use a health rider exerciser some of the time for more muscle work. I also push my old time reel mowers about the large lawn for extra activitiy. It says on those sites I mentioned to do as much manual work as possible. Grind your own coffee, use a hand beater, in other words avoid as much as possible sitting at these computers doing nothing. Thats the hardest one it seems.

I also purchased a meter, I got a cheaper walmart one eventually due to the high cost of strips on the mainline brands. It seems to be just about the same in numbers and half as much to operate. Watch everything for the carb content and stay within reason. Over a bit of time those things will work, at least for a while.

[pile1957]

Ronin and all thanks for the feedback.

I did buy a BS meter and am running a 94 average, varies between 85 and 123 depending on how much and what I eat. I have been cutting carbs almost completely. Did get fasting BS numbers from my cardiologist since early 2007 and they were between 91 and 100, the last one from my GP was 115 after a huge dinner late at night before the fast. One week earlier at my cardiologist it was 91.

Noticed now check it fasting every day and it is anywhere between 83 and 92.

As far as the C-Peptide, would be the cause of not enough insulin, Pancreas?

As far as the HbA1c test, I have heard it is heavily weighted toward the end of the toward the last 4 weeks. I asked my doctor to do a test in 3 months and he acknowledge the last 4-6 weeks as well.

His big push is to loose weight, have lost 6 pounds in the last week. Have been eating very few carbs. The thing that bothers me is that I typically keep my carb input to a minimum, as it adds weight. My wife was surprised as well.


Keep the feedback coming