Stanford's BeWell has posted a helpful piece with information on pre-diabetes and how monitoring your fasting blood glucose level can help you stay healthy. Additionally, the piece offers tips - including losing weight and increasing physical activity - on how to keep the condition from progressing into type-2 diabetes.
Why is now the time to start paying attention? The piece explains:
It is estimated that 79 million adults aged 20 and older have pre-diabetes and 25.8 million Americans have diabetes — 8.3% of the U.S. population.
The number of people diagnosed with diabetes each year has risen from 1.5 million in 1958 to 18.8 million in 2010, an increase of epidemic proportions.
What's more:
Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death listed on U.S. death certificates. The overall risk for death among people with diabetes is about double that of people without diabetes.
Previously: The exercise pill: A better prescription than drugs for patients with heart problems? and More than three-quarters of Americans projected to be overweight, obese by 2020
