How to fix pre-diabetes before it gets too late

If you’re relatively young and healthy, this column may not mean much to you now, but in 10, 20 years, who knows. The trick is to stop the bad stuff from happening before you are diagnosed with it.

Hence this column about Type 2 diabetes and how to avoid it and/or stop it from progressing, while actually watching it reverse course.

If I can do it, anyone can do it. All it takes is some real motivation to get down the blood sugar running through our system.

Sad to say, the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) has one of the highest diabetes rates in the entire U.S., with recent data showing that one in three adults living here have been diagnosed as “diabetic” with the disease (Source: NIH).

We’re not quite double the national average, but too close for comfort — 43.95 percent, vs. 26.73 percent.

If you have a child, the fight to keep them slim isn’t easy in this era of easy junk food and ultra-processed snacks (drinks, etc.) that actually serve like a drug once it hits the brain.

It’s a win for some food companies because the high fructose corn syrup and added sugars in the junk food affect the brain’s primary reward center that releases the dopamine. Basically, the same brain circuitry activated by addictive drugs.

It’s about the same for juvenile diabetics in the RGV vs. the national average 43.95 percent compared to 26.73 percent.

Those numbers include both Type 1 Diabetes and Type 2.

Approximately 90 to 95 percent of the total number is always Type 2, which is the one that can be managed, mainly, by diet and health style changes.

Type 1 is an autoimmune disease, which unlike Type 2 is not related to the consumption of added sugar. It’s most often the result of a genetic predisposition over which the patient has no power to influence.

It Starts with Sugar

Like most things bad for us, the diabetic process starts with what we eat. Or don’t eat.

Sure, if we cut back to combat either a weight gain or high sugar levels, we might miss the key lime pie, cheesecake, pan dulce, or (pick a sweet), but it beats foot amputation any day, which is indeed a tragedy for too many in the RGV.

Granted, most who get diabetes don’t end up with having a foot, leg amputated, but some of the other things you can get from Type 2 diabetes aren’t too great either: Heart attacks; strokes; poor heart circulation; clogged arteries; nerve damage, especially those fun stabbing pains in the feet; kidney damage; and the possibility of going blind.

All in all, a sad deal for a disease that, for the most part, can be defeated before it ever gets to that point where the whole enchilada starts to really affect one’s quality of life and not for the better.

Even if one does get diagnosed as a Type 2 diabetic, up to a point, the disease can be reversed through simple lifestyle changes, food choices. Not always, but most of the time.

The good news is, the condition can be managed and caught before it progresses. In fact, the sugar (glucose) level in your system can be completely reversed. In South Texas, with our high incidence of diabetes, that’s a big deal.

Fix Type 2

The way to do it is find out what your A1C number is.

That says it all because it’s a blood test that measures someone’s blood glucose (blood sugar) level over a three-month span.

So you can’t cheat on a Monday, have no sugar, take a test on Tuesday and have it come back looking great.

The A1C level gives it to you straight.

If you hit 6.4 on your A1C, you’re already considered to be prediabetic (high level), on the verge of being officially recognized as a diabetic, which kicks in at 6.5.

From that point, most docs will want to start dishing out all sorts of meds for you because, well, that’s how modern medicine does it, which isn’t always bad — here, take this pill.

But if you can do something that will forestall a disease, forestall taking a pill, or two, or three, why not?

By the way, the maximum recommended daily intake of added sugar, according to the American Heart Association, says that an adult male should limit daily added sugar consumption to 36 grams.

For adult women, it’s even less — 24 to 25 grams, simply because women are typically smaller than average men, needing less daily calories.

Cutting Back Works

Sixteen months ago, my A1C was 6.4, on the verge of becoming diabetic.

My doc officially labeled me as “prediabetic,” which is an A1C range of between 5.7 and 6.4.

One more Twinkie might do it.

After reading up on it, already feeling the nerve pain in the feet, I thought, screw this, I’ll fix it myself.

I cut back on the added sugar, counted the grams daily, kept them to a minimum, and last September, I dropped to 5.7.

Good, but still listed as a prediabetic, Type 2.

So I doubled down and cut back even more on added sugar.

I took a blood test at HEB Rx this past Saturday — 5.6 A1C, which now means I am no longer prediabetic.

Of course I celebrated with two donuts, but I figured I earned them.

By Sunday, I was already back on my reduced added-sugar kick. Now I’m determined to get the A1C level down to 5.5 by the time the next blood test comes around at my doc’s office this September.

Like I said, if I can do it, you can do it. Never admit defeat.

Tell yourself, you can control your own health.

Count the calories, count the grams of added sugar every day, sodium if you really want to clean out the pipes, weigh yourself every morning, and within a year, you, too, will no longer be a diabetic, prediabetic, and you’ll be listed in the normal weight range.

The Rio Grande Valley can do better than it’s doing.

One can of Coke, 12 ounces, by the way — 39 grams of added sugar, which is equivalent to 10 teaspoons of sugar.

If one stopped there for the day with regard to added-sugar consumption, it still wouldn’t be too bad – only 3 grams over the recommended daily max (American Heart Association).

Most people, however, don’t stop there. They’ll have another can of soda, deserts, etc., all of which may taste good, but like everything that tastes good, it’s not good for you.

The only exception just may be Halo Ice Cream.

It’s low in added sugar and calories, has fiber, and it’s the only low-sweet food I’ve ever had that actually tastes good.

Halo Ice Cream

If you look at the nutrition label of anything you consume, look for the “added sugar” number, which is right below the “Total Sugar” number.

That’s the one you want to keep track of daily — added sugars.

But the work of denying myself the key lime pie I love, the cheesecake, the pecan pie, it’s been worth it to no longer be classified as a prediabetic.

If I had continued to eat the amount of added sugar I was consuming, my beloved pop tarts, etc., ignoring the warning signs my body was sending me, it would have been a lot worse five years from now.

This column turned out to be too long, but hopefully it will help just one person reclaim their health.