Preventing and Managing Diabetes

It is estimated that over 40 million Americans have diabetes. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1 in every 4 adults who have diabetes don’t know they have it. Since diabetes can be a silent illness, it is important to know what your risk is and to be on the lookout for common symptoms of the disease.

What Is Diabetes?

Diabetes is a disease that alters the way our bodies produce insulin and use the sugars we get primarily through our diet.

Type I: thought to be an autoimmune mediated disease. This means that the body’s own immune system mistakenly attacks itself to alter the way a person produces insulin. A person with Type I Diabetes must take insulin daily to regulate their blood sugars. Type I Diabetes is typically diagnosed in childhood or young adulthood but can be diagnosed at any time.

Type II: much more common than Type I. This type of diabetes alters the way our cells use the sugars in our blood stream. This can be due to a lack of insulin production or even insulin resistance. Type II diabetes can sometimes be controlled with lifestyle changes like diet and exercise.

Gestational Diabetes: occurs during pregnancy in someone who has not been diagnosed with diabetes before. Having gestational diabetes can put the baby at risk for other health problems such as being a large size, obesity later in life, and even developing type II Diabetes themselves. Blood sugar control during pregnancy is crucial for the development of the baby.

How Is Diabetes Diagnosed?

There are a few different tests that can be done to tell if someone has diabetes. There is a glucose tolerance test which tests how quickly someone’s body is able to regulate blood sugar. This is done by having someone drink a medical grade glucose drink. Then, they wait for 1 to 3 hours and have their blood sugar checked each hour.

Another way to diagnose diabetes is through fasting glucose levels. This is checking someone's blood sugar when they have not had anything to eat or drink for several hours.

The most common way we check for diabetes is a test called the Hemoglobin A1C. Sugar in your blood sticks to your red blood cells. The higher your blood sugar is, the more sugar sticks to those cells. Since red blood cells live about 3 months, this test gives us a good average of your blood sugar over the last 3 months.

Can I Prevent Getting Diabetes?

In some cases, there are ways to prevent developing diabetes. Many of those ways are through lifestyle modifications. For instance, sometimes we only think of things like soda and candy as a source of sugar. However, our bodies break down many things into glucose. Bread, pasta, rice, and even some vegetables turn into sugar through digestion. One way to decrease blood sugar is to swap white bread, pasta, and rice to brown or whole grain alternatives. Another way to slow down “sugar spikes” is to add protein to your complex carbohydrates. For example, instead of eating saltine crackers for a snack, eat whole grain saltine crackers with peanut butter or cheese which help the body slowly break down those sugars.

Increasing exercise also helps to stabilize blood sugar. Our muscles play a large role in the uptake of excess sugars in the blood. So, engaging our muscles in exercise promotes healthy blood sugar regulation.

What Can I Do to Detect Diabetes

Because 1 out of every 4 people with diabetes don’t know they have it, it’s important to get screened for the disease. Clinicians at the MVP Wellness Clinic can help guide and advise on what type of screening is right for you. Call or text the clinic at 616-730-8832 to schedule an appointment.