Many people with high blood sugar levels are told by their doctors that they do not have diabetes because their fasting blood sugar levels are below 100 mg/dl, which is considered normal. Early in the disease, diabetics often have a “normal” fasting blood sugar, but one hour after they eat, their blood sugar levels rise above 140, which signals that they are at increased risk for heart attacks, strokes, cancers, nerve damage and premature death. Not knowing that you have early diabetes is a real tragedy because most cases of early diabetes can be cured with lifestyle changes.
Early Diabetics Often Have Normal Fasting Blood Sugar Levels
Everybody’s blood sugar levels rise after they eat. If blood sugar levels rise above 140 mg/dl (7.8 mmol/L) after you eat, the sugar in your bloodstream can stick to the outer membranes of all types of cells in your body. Once stuck on a cell, blood sugar cannot get off and it is eventually converted by a series of chemical reactions to sorbitol that destroys that cell.
This month, researchers showed that people whose blood sugar levels rise above 140 one hour after a meal already have all the same markers of arteriosclerosis as proven diabetics, even though they may have normal fasting blood sugar levels and a normal glucose tolerance test
The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, composed of doctors who treat diabetics regularly, recommends that blood sugar levels should not be allowed to rise above 140 mg/dl two hours after a meal. Having normal fasting blood sugar levels but high blood sugar after meals is associated with increased risk for:
• diabetes
• heart attacks
• cancer
• stroke
• premature death
• a damaged left heart muscle
• abnormal diastole, the heart’s ability to relax after each beat
• high blood pressure
• low blood levels of vitamin D
Nerve Damage and High Blood Sugar After Eating
Many people who come to doctors with loss of feeling or severe pain are not diagnosed as being diabetic because their fasting blood sugar levels are below the “normal” 100. Having post-meal blood sugar levels above 140 mg/dL can cause nerve damage
When compared to people without nerve damage, those with nerve damage are far more likely to have one-hour-after-eating-blood-sugar levels greater than 140 mg/dl {7.8 mmol/L}
Warning Signs of Early Diabetes
If you have more than two of the following signs of diabetes and your fasting blood sugar is “normal” (under 100), ask your doctor to check your blood sugar one hour after eating a meal. If it is above 140, you are in the early stages of diabetes and are at increased risk for damage to every cell in your body. This is a signal that you should change your lifestyle immediately before you suffer serious damage to your health or even death.
Signs that you are at increased risk for being diabetic:
• systolic blood pressure > 120 at bedtime
• fasting blood sugar >100
• blood sugar over 140 two hours after eating
• triglycerides >150 mg/dL
• good HDL Cholesterol <45
• store fat primarily in the belly, rather than the hips
• have a fatty liver (picked up by abnormal liver blood tests or a sonogram of the liver)
• pinch more than three inches of fat under the skin near your belly button
• have small buttocks
• have a family history of diabetes
• are overweight
• have an HBA1c greater than 5.5. (HBA1c is a blood test that measures how much sugar is stuck on cells and predicts cell damage from high blood sugar levels)
• have small particle HDL and LDL cholesterol
• smoke
• take more than one alcoholic drink a day or binge drink
• have small muscles
• do not exercise
• in men, a thick neck or male pattern baldness
• in women, excess hair on the face or body, or have diabetes during pregnancy
Symptoms of diabetes:
• frequent urinating
• frequent defecating
• eating all the time and still feeling hungry
• being thirsty
• feeling tired
• losing weight without trying
• genital itching or fungus infections
• cuts and wounds that do not heal
• blurred vision
Lifestyle Changes to Prev7ent Diabete7Heart Attacks and Cancers
