Introduction

Prediabetes is a medical condition that is rapidly on the rise. It's expected that over 470 million people will have prediabetes globally in the next five years. It is estimated that 80% of the people who have prediabetes don't even realize that they have it. Because prediabetes can lead to serious health complications such as the onset of heart disease, diabetes, and stroke, learning how to prevent and reverse it is important. While prediabetes should be taken seriously, a diagnosis doesn't mean that it's time to panic. By maintaining a calm, practical, and even enjoyable approach to healthful eating and lifestyle strategies, you and those you love can prevent the onset of diabetes while enjoying yourself in the process.

Why Do We Need This Book?

The growing epidemic of prediabetes and diabetes call for accurate, concise, and helpful information that will help to disrupt the current negative trends. By providing those with prediabetes the information they need to take charge of their health and prevent the onset of diabetes itself, this book can help you and your loved ones to live their best lives.

Having a prediabetes diagnosis means that your blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but they are not high enough to be in the diabetes category. While you may not see drastic warning signs with prediabetes, a doctor's diagnosis is your warning sign to make the positive changes which will keep you healthy.

We define prediabetes clearly in Chapter 1. Prediabetes is not usually associated with all the bad complications of diabetes, which we discuss in Chapter 3, but it alone may be associated with some heart problems. And prediabetes is not only the stage before diabetes. It may also be the stage before high blood pressure (prehypertension) or high cholesterol. All the abnormalities that lead to prediabetes (that can go on to diabetes) are also to blame for the development of prehypertension (that can go on to high blood pressure) and mildly elevated cholesterol (that can go on to hypercholesterolemia). By helping you to reverse prediabetes, we're also helping you to reverse the other two conditions. So, you are basically getting three books for the price of one. What a deal!

Approaching this book with the knowledge that you can reverse prediabetes is important. If there is one point that we want to make clear, it's that you are not doomed to develop diabetes just because you have prediabetes. You can still enjoy optimal health and using this book as a guide enables you to do so. If you reverse prediabetes, you will probably reverse prehypertension and mildly elevated cholesterol as well. Chapters 8 through 21 provide everything you need to know to do this.

About This Book

This book is an excellent resource for what you need to know about prediabetes - and a lot about diabetes as well. (You can find everything you need to know about diabetes in an excellent book called Diabetes For Dummies, the 6th edition of which we wrote a few years ago.)

You don't have to read this book from start to finish (but it wouldn't hurt). You can pick up the book and start reading anywhere you want. If you want to know what prediabetes is, start with Chapter 1. If you want to know what factors lead to prediabetes, Part 1 provides the answers. Getting a diagnosis is taken up in Part 2, while Part 3 discusses creating a healthy lifestyle. Part 4 teaches you the ways that the Mediterranean diet can work for you. Part 5 tells you how to avoid or reverse prediabetes.

Our aim, with this book, is to empower you to embrace science-based approaches to creating a healthy lifestyle. Developing a healthy relationship with food, achieving and maintaining a healthy weight, living an active lifestyle, and managing stress and seeking joy, are important factors which we illustrate throughout this guide to help prevent you from developing diabetes.

Conventions Used in This Book

The sugar in your blood is called glucose, and too-high glucose leads to many of the complications of diabetes. But the white sugar you eat is not glucose; it's sucrose. And many other sugars exist, such as fructose, maltose, and galactose. So we don't use just the word sugar in this book; we call the particular sugar by its proper name.

When we mention a level of blood sugar (glucose), it is shown in units called milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL). I don't mean to confuse you, but the rest of the world uses the International System of units called, in this case, millimoles per liter (mmol/L). You can convert mg/dL to mmol/L as you cross the border of the United States into Canada simply by dividing the mg/dL by 18. For example, a blood glucose of 100 mg/dL is 5.5 mmol/L.

Two major types of diabetes exist: Type 1 diabetes mellitus and Type 2 diabetes mellitus. We refer to them as Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes in this book.

We discuss nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle frequently in this book because of how they affect your overall health, which in turn affects your susceptibility to prediabetes and diabetes.

Finally, in Chapter 15, Chef Amy Riolo (one of the authors) includes more than 25 complete meal recipes to try. Each of these recipes is packed not only with flavor, but with balanced micronutrients and powerful plant compounds which can reduce inflammation and help balance blood sugar. If you're a vegetarian, look for the tomato next to the recipe name that indicates the recipe does not contain meat, poultry, or fish.

What You Don't Have to Read

Everyone is different. You may have received a thorough explanation of what prediabetes is from your doctor already, and you're just here to discover how to manage it. In that case, you can skip to Part 3. If you're unfamiliar with what prediabetes is, how to help a loved one, how to prevent children from being diagnosed, and so forth, however, reading Part 4 in its entirety is a good idea. The Part of Tens section offers four chapters that are full of concise, helpful information that are great to reference from time to time on your wellness journey.

Foolish Assumptions

We assume that your mind is a blank when it comes to the actual scientific differences between prediabetes and diabetes. Therefore, you won't suddenly come up against a term that you have never seen before without finding an immediate definition of that term. On the other hand, if you already know something about the subject, you can expect to find much greater detail. Throughout the book, the most important points are clearly marked using tools such as icons (which we explain in a moment).

We also assume that you'd like to know as much as possible, and as many ways as possible in which you can help yourself or others reverse diabetes. For this reason, we explain each of the tips and strategies that are available currently to help you do so.

How This Book Is Organized

This book has six parts, and you don't have to start at Part 1. Each part is self-contained. In fact, each chapter is self-contained, so if you see a chapter title that really excites you such as "Cooking and Eating for Health and Enjoyment," feel free to jump right in there. Here is a brief synopsis of what you can find in each part of this book.

Part 1: Confronting the Prediabetes Epidemic

This introductory part gives you a foundation of understanding as to what prediabetes is all about. Dr. Simon Poole starts with a discussion of how prediabetes originates. From there, he moves on to talk about when you should suspect that you have developed prediabetes. What are the elements of your family history, your personal history, and your current lifestyle that suggest this diagnosis? Moving right along, he traces the factors that convert prediabetes to diabetes. Then he offers a general discussion about stopping this conversion before it happens.

Part 2: Getting a Diagnosis

The second part of the book defines the Metabolic Syndrome and how to spot it. It also teaches how essential tests are performed and how to interpret results. In this part, Dr. Simon Poole also discusses special conditions including children, the elderly, and other life stages in which prediabetes is prevalent. Getting the proper diagnosis is the first step to transforming your health.

Part 3: Food and Other Factors: Creating a Healthy Lifestyle

What you discover in these chapters should make it clear to you that prediabetes, as well as Type 2 diabetes, is promoted by unhealthy lifestyle habits, which means both conditions can be reversed by adopting healthier lifestyle habits.

The first lifestyle habit to consider is the food you eat. Next, you want to deal with your weight by maintaining an active lifestyle. Exercise is an important component of a healthy lifestyle, which can help you burn calories and gain muscle. Finally, taking steps toward minimizing stress can help you manage prediabetes successfully.

Part 4: The Benefits of the Mediterranean Diet

Untreated or poorly managed diabetes can cause low blood glucose (hypoglycemia) and very high blood glucose (hyperglycemia). These conditions have a very definite effect on your quality of life and need to be prevented.

Next are the long-term...