Shall I take Diabetes Test?

Management at a prediabetes stage can reduce the risk of developing diabetes by losing just 5-7% of the body weight through lifestyle modification.

Diabetes is a worldwide epidemic with a projected number of 370 million adults in 2030. Ninety per cent of these diabetics will be type 2 diabetics. Type 2 diabetes is adult onset diabetes, where there is a relative insulin deficiency in the body.

Coping with type 2 diabetes

This disease can be managed by effective and widespread prevention strategies
Diagnosis of type 2 diabetes should be made in the prediabetes stage, and
prevention strategies instituted at that stage

Management at a prediabetes stage can reduce the risk of developing diabetes by losing just 5-7% of the body weight through lifestyle modification like the following:

Diet modification:

By cutting fats and calories in the diet

Increased physical activity:

Brisk walking 30 minutes a day; 5 days a week.

Medicines are also beneficial at this stage. They can be added if diet and exercise alone fail to convert prediabetes to normal in six months. It is estimated that 470 million adults will have prediabetes in the year 2025. Out of these, 50-70% of them will develop type 2 diabetes. Individuals with prediabetes are 34% more likely to die due to cardiovascular disorders than healthy individuals. This risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease can be reduced with early intervention. Early intervention is cost effective.

Who should be screened?

Screening for type 2 diabetes should be done if:

Older than 35 years of age
Obese BMI 23
Family history of diabetes
Family history of cardiovascular disease
Females with polycystic ovarian disease

All persons who fall in these categories should get their fasting blood glucose done at the earliest, and consult an endocrinologist.

MONITORING DIABETES

Regular monitoring is the key to keeping your diabetes in check and living a healthy life.

The secret in being a productive diabetic is to monitor blood sugars and use it as a base to make informed decisions regarding dietary and life style modifications.

Why is it important to monitor blood sugars?
Very often blood sugar monitoring is delayed, postponed or considered an extra effort, but what we do not realise is that uncontrolled, unchecked highs and lows in blood sugar can lead to a series of complications in both types of diabetics. This can cause complications on vital systems of the body, like the brain, kidneys, heart, or eyes.

So what is smart self blood sugar monitoring?
Help your diabetologist by taking a spread out of blood sugars – pre and post meal (two hours after the meal) on different days, coupled with one or two readings of 5:00 pm sugars, bedtime sugars and 3:00 am sugars.

Bedtime blood glucose level should be maintained between 100 and 140 mg/dl. If bed time glucose is less than 100 mg/dl consume a carbohydrate (CHO) snack before going to bed. If the 5:00 pm random blood sugar is less than 80 mg/dl, there is risk of going into hypoglycaemia at night.

If you are a physically active person, check your sugars pre-exercise. If it is less than 90 mg/dl, consume a carbohydrate snack and also check on your insulin dosage.

If the difference between pre and post meal sugars is less than 50 mg/dl, it indicates that the food choices are working well.

If blood sugars are more than 240 mg/dl, check back on food, medication and limit vigorous exercise.

Make notes on deviation in sugars with the changes in meal pattern or exercise schedule or eating out. Explore the options of monitoring devices available to achieve this.

What your self-monitoring device should have?
Pick a monitoring device that’s easy to use. You want to be able to monitor your glucose as easily as possible rather than it becoming another chore. Some of the latest devices have a variety of features, which include:

Auto-coding: The calibration code is embedded on each strip, thereby eliminating coding-related errors.
Results flagging: Some devices have the ability to separately store fasting and post meal readings, so you don’t have to maintain an additional log book to record results.
Small pricking devices: Another feature to look out for if you want to monitor your blood-glucose painlessly.
Temperature sensor: This sensor helps you get temperature-corrected results.