Prediabetes: What’s in a Name

The Lie That’s Killing Us: Pre-Diabetes

By: Riva Greenberg

Riva Greenberg, diabetes advocate and author, has written a compelling article proposing that we stop calling the metabolic condition that precedes full-blown Type 2 diabetes, prediabetes.  The prediabetes designation implies that this metabolic state is not yet a disease that needs to be addressed.  Actually, prediabetes is characterized by fasting blood glucose levels between 100 and 125 mg/dL, and/or hemoglobin A1c levels between 5.7% and 6.4%, which recent research suggests can already be contributing to diabetic complications, including Alzheimers disease.

Riva presents compelling arguments that prediabetes should be called “Stage 1” Type 2 diabetes to raise awareness of the disease so that action can be taken to bring the disease into remission or at the very least delay it’s progression to Type 2 diabetes.

The link between oxidative stress, insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes, suggests that lifestyle changes (diet and exercise) can help to reverse prediabetes (Stage 1 Type 2 diabetes), and the progression to the later stages of Type 2 diabetes.  Many of our customers supplement their lifestyle changes with alpha lipoic acid, which has been demonstrated to ameliorate oxidative stress and the resulting insulin resistance.

Read the full article….

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/riva-greenberg/prediabetes_b_3023146.html