What should you do when you learn you are prediabetic? Join M. Regina Castro, M.D., as she explains what prediabetes is and what it means for your risk of developing diabetes in the future. She goes over questions such as:
• Does this mean you’re going to develop diabetes later?
• How do you need to change your diet and lifestyle to prevent diabetes?
• What sorts of foods should y eat to help prevent diabetes?
Read the transcript:
So you have now been diagnosed with pre-diabetes. What should you do?
People can be diagnosed with pre-diabetes basically at a stage where their blood sugars are slightly elevated — not high enough to meet the criteria or to be
diagnosed as diabetics — but certainly higher than normal. We know that people with a diagnosis of pre-diabetes have a much higher risk of becoming a diabetic down the road. Fortunately, there are many interventions that can help prevent that progression.
Study after study has shown that if you have pre-diabetes, the most helpful interventions to prevent progression to overt diabetes is basically lifestyle modification, diet and weight loss. If you lose as little as seven percent of your body weight, studies have shown that you can prevent or delay the development of Diabetes by 50 to 70 percent, depending on the study.
In terms of your diet, we often eat large portions high in calories high in fat, so basically number one is portion control. Reducing the amount of food on your plate is important but also the types of food make a difference trying to reduce the calories in the foods. A Mediterranean diet is a very good example where you’re reducing the amount of carbohydrates. You’re eating more grains and fibers and fruit, and that is
a very healthy diet — and one diet that can help people with pre-diabetes avoid progression to diabetes. But the most important thing is number one portion control, eating more whole grain foods versus avoiding refined sugars and simple carbohydrates. And you know, basically, what we should all be doing eating a healthy diet with a lot of fruits and vegetables, less meat, less red meat. Those are some of the things that I think would be very helpful in terms of managing your diet and helping you lose weight.
