Last week, the American Diabetes Association celebrated its 25th annual Alert Day; a one-day “wake-up call” which encourages you to take the Diabetes Risk Test to find out if you are at risk for developing type 2 diabetes. But why is this so important that the Association has been alerting citizens for 25 years?
Early diagnosis of diabetes is critical in determining how the disease will affect your wellbeing, but often diagnosis comes seven to 10 years after the onset of the diabetes, and this gives complications plenty of time to develop. In the past, prediabetes has been referred as “a touch of sugar” or having “borderline” diabetes, there is no such thing as borderline diabetes — either you have it or you don’t.
When you have prediabetes, your blood glucose (sugar) is higher than normal, but not high enough to meet the criteria to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. This means that you have a relatively high risk for developing diabetes, but you can still delay or prevent it. With lifestyle changes, increasing your physical activity and losing as little as 7% of your body weight, you can stop the onset or progression of type 2 diabetes.
However, if you fall into a certain subcategory of the population, your risk of having undiagnosed diabetes may be greater than others. High-risk ethnic populations such as African Americans, Hispanic/Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are more at risk of unknowingly having the disease, and men are twice as likely to have undiagnosed diabetes.
You’re also twice as likely to develop type 2 diabetes if you have an immediate family member with the disease. If you have gestational diabetes during pregnancy, this increases your chances of developing type 2 diabetes seven-fold compared to women who didn’t have diabetes in pregnancy. Your risk for the disease also increases as you age, if you have high blood pressure, if you don’t get enough exercise or if you’re overweight.
If you fall into one of these categories, or even if you don’t, surely it makes sense to take a quick and easy test to find out your diabetes risk. Go to www.stopdiabetes.com, click on “Get the Facts” then “The Risk” and answer the questions.
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