Here is another reason to stay fit and healthy. Actual diabetes is defined as fasting blood sugar of 126 or higher or a two-hour oral GTT of 200 (Fasting blood sugar of 100 to 125 or a reading of 140 to 199 on a two-hour oral glucose tolerance test or GTT)

If you think this is not a problem, think again. By the time people are diagnose with type 2 diabetes or experience symptoms like constant thirst or frequent urination, its often too late to cure the problem: insulin resistance, a condition in which the body has trouble using the insulin it produces to convert carbohydrates from food to energy. As a result, sugar accumulates in the blood. Prediabetes means you already have some degree of insulin resistance but it hasn’t driven your blood sugar high enough for an official diagnosis. However, people with prediabetes are five to 15 times more likely to develop the actual disease than those with normal blood sugar and are also at higher risk of suffering from heart diseases or stroke.

Anyways, the good news is that there is a way to avoid progressive prediabetes into actual diabetes. Since, by just dropping 5 to 7 percent of your weight will do it. In a large study in US, men and women who lost that amount were 58 percent less likely to progress to diabetes, a dramatic turnaround that was far better than the results for a similar high-risk group who took medication. That means that if you weigh 150 now, losing just 7.5 to 10.5 pounds could keep you from becoming diabetic. But even if you’re successful, keep exercising as well as watching your diet. You want your blood sugar to stay low and studies have found that exercise is the key. Hey, you don’t want to suffer from actual diabetes, right?

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