A couple of weeks ago, I posted a video from Michael Stevens, the creator of Vsauce, and host of the Diabetes Download. Today, I’d like to share with you another of his videos explaining the symptoms of diabetes. Here’s the breakdown.
The symptoms of diabetes are very mild, and not as noticeable as those from a common cold, for example. Not having noticeable symptoms causes people to not be diagnosed as diabetic, and become another statistic within the 8 million undiagnosed Americans.
Risk Factors
Diabetes screening is the best way to know if you have diabetes or not. Only a certified professional can skillfully and accurately screen you. It’s important to be screened for diabetes if you have any of the folloing common risk factors.
- Hypertension
- Being overweight
- History of gestational diabetes
- Age
- Ethnicity
- High cholesterol
- Faily history
Testing
The A1C test, short for Hemoglobin A1C test, gives an idea of how well blood sugar is controlled. To be diagnosed free of diabetes, the final result of the test should be under 6.5%, anything higher could mean that you have diabetes.
Another test is the fasting plasma glucose test, or FPG for short. This test measures the amount of blood glucose after or period or 8 to 10 since your last time you had food. The best time to do this test is first thing in hte morning, before having breakfast. Anything higher than 126 mg/dL or blood glucose most likely means diabetes.
A third test is the random plasma glucose test, which takes—as the name suggests—a measurement at any time of the day. 200 mg/dL is the cutoff, anything higher may result in a diabetes diagnosis.
The OGTT (orgal glucose tolerance test) is yet another method for diabetes screening. It consists of checking blood sugar before and two hours after taking a special fluid administered by the healthfcare prodivder. Its goal is to determine how well your body processes blood glucose. Like in the randome plasma glucose test, being over 200 mg/dL is considered diabetes.
Prediabetes
According to the CDC, 86 million Americans have prediabetes, and many don’t even know about it. It’s also important to get screened for prediabetes. Althought prediabetes is not the same as diabetes, it is a condition that if left unchecked, could evolve to diabetes.
If you get tested for FPG and A1C and FPG is between 100 and 126 mg/dL, or the A1C is between 5.7 and 6.4%, you could have prediabetes. Unfotunately, there is not an FDA approve mediation to treat prediabetes, but diet and excercise can help you rid yourself of prediabetes and live and healthier life.
Act Now
If you have a risk factored mentioned above, talk to your doctor about getting screened for diabetes or prediabetes. It is better to know sooner than later.
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TheDiabetesDownload. Ep 2: Signs and Symptoms of Diabetes. Youtube video.
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