Managing Prediabetes to Protect Your Heart

Ways to Safeguard Your Heart with Prediabetes

The risk of prediabetes-linked heart attack or stroke can be minimised by eating more vegetables, fruits and whole grains and by regular exercise. If you have prediabetes, it means your blood sugar is high but not quite to the level of diabetes. 

You may feel like you are fine for now. However, the reality is you are already at higher vulnerability for heart attack and stroke with prediabetes blood sugar levels.  

It is apparent that high blood sugar level can have an effect on your kidneys and blood vessels. Hence, prediabetic stage is the ideal time to take steps to deal those risks and protect your heart. 

Prediabetes Explained Through Numbers

A diagnosis of prediabetes usually means your blood sugar levels are: 

• Fasting blood sugar between 100 mg/dL and 125 mg/dL.
• Hemoglobin A1C between 5.7% and 6.4%.
• glucose between 140 mg/dL and 199 mg/dL (in a glucose challenge test).

What Causes Prediabetes?

The accurate cause is not yet known to the scientific community. However, it is often associated with insulin resistance. The hormone insulin is generated by the pancreas, and its role is to control the absorption of sugar or glucose so that it is cleared into the cells.

Insulin acts as the special key which provides glucose with cells access, where it will ultimately be used to make energy. Insulin resistance is when body cells don't respond correctly to this hormone, causing blood sugar to spike.

Detecting this condition is easy be using a common blood test such as Fasting Plasma Glucose (FPG) test, an HbA1C test, as well as other insulin resistance tests like a glucose challenge. Someone is diagnosed with prediabetes if their FPG test result of between 100 and 125 or if their A1C results between 5.7% and 6.4%.

Prediabetes and Type 2 Diabetes

If left untreated, prediabetes can become fully-fledged type 2 diabetes, a chronic health disease in which your body is unable to absorb glucose efficiently for metabolism, resulting in high blood sugar.

Uncontrolled diabetes can result in an array of health complications, from heart attack to stroke to tissue damage, kidney disease, blindness and a string of life-threatening infections. 

While a prediabetes diagnosis must be treated as a wake-up call, it not only implies that you will automatically get type 2 diabetes. Reversing prediabetes is possible with particular lifestyle changes.

However, it is important to note that prediabetes itself can be harmful - many diabetes already have tissue damage when they are diagnosed. 

Ways to Reverse Prediabetes

1. Heart-friendly Diet
The fat and carbohydrate intake are important to control both diabetes and heart disease. However you should pay attention to the types of every nutrient you consume, not just the total amount.
Particularly, you should restrict saturated fat - which is present i meat, dairy products, and few tropical oils - because it can spike levels of unhealthy LDL cholesterol in your blood, resulting in the buildup of fatty deposits called as plaque in your arteries.
You must also avoid carbohydrates, including the processed grains and refined sugars present in many desserts and snack foods. These foods can increase blood sugar levels more rapidly and are linked with higher rates of heart disease.
The Mediterranean diet is heart-friendly. It is based on legumes (peas, lentils and beans), whole grains, fish, lean meats and poultry, healthy fats from olive oil & nuts, and a great deal of vegetables and fruits.

2. Exercise Consistently
Lack of physical activity is a soild risk factor for prediabetes. Exercise is not only for mental health and energy; it can also reduce your blood sugar by boosting insulin sensitivity. This enables the cells present in your body to use insulin more efficiently. 
The American Diabetes Association (ADA) says exercise can minimise blood sugar for up to 24 hours post-workout. If you are starting a new exercise routine, start slow. Involve in light physical activity for 15 or 20 minutes, and then slowly increase the intensity and length of the workouts after a few days.
You can have 30 to 60 minutes of moderate physical activity at least five days a week. Exercises can include walking, jogging, biking, swimming, aerobics and playing sports.

3. Lose Weight
One advantage of a regular exercise routine is that it helps you shed excess weight. Actually, losing as little as 5 to 10 per cent of body fat may improve your blood sugar level and assist in reversing prediabetes. For a few people, this is about 10 to 20 pounds.
Insulin resistance escalates when you have a larger waist size, too. This is inches or more for women and 40 inches or more for men. Regular exercise routine and a healthy routine are both keys to losing weight. 
You can take other steps also. This include working with a personal trainer, getting a gym membership or having an accountability buddy, such as a family member or friend.
Also, it may help to consume five or six smaller meals throughout the day as an alternative of three large meals.

4. Quit Smoking
Besides potentially increasing your blood sugar in the short term, smoking can aggravate the impact of diabetes complications. Generally, your healthcare provider can assist you in your attempts to quit smoking.
However, if you have trouble quitting, you may be referred to smoking cessation. While the risk of lung cancer is apparent, smoking also greatly heightens the risk of heart disease by harming blood vessel walls and elevating the buildup of plaque. 

5. Eat Less Carbs
Even if you are committed to healthy eating, it is vital to select your carbohydrates consciously. You will also need to consume fewer carbs to assist in reversing prediabetes.

For the most part, you want to consume complex carbohydrates, which are unprocessed carbs. These include:

• beans
• vegetables
• whole grains

These carbs are filled with fibre and keep you full longer. They also take time to break down; hence, they absorb into your body at a slower rate. This assists in the prevention of blood sugar spikes. 

Limit or avoid simple carbohydrates, which are absorbed instantly and cause an immediate spike in blood sugar. Simple carbohydrates are: 

• honey
• juices
• candy
• yoghurt

some fruits

Refined carbohydrates are also fast-acting & should be limited or avoided. These include:

• pastries
• pasta
• white rice
• white bread
• pizza dough
• breakfast cereals

Consume Alcohol Only in Moderation 

While some studies have highlighted there may be an association between moderate or light drinking and heart benefits, particularly from red wine, the American Heart Association (AHA) observes that no research has proven there is conclusive evidence between alcohol consumption and improved heart health,

The American Heart Association (AHA) does not suggest drinking wine, or any other form of alcohol is an attempt to earn any possible health benefits, & they note that flavonoids & other antioxidants in red wine that may potentially be good for the heart are also present in other foods such as grape juice and blueberries.

Alcohol may impede diabetes medications and can make your blood sugar increase or decrease based on the content of the drink. The ADA observes that consuming alcohol can reduce blood glucose for up to 24 hours and suggests that people with type 2 diabetes eat a meal or a snack when they consume to prevent blood sugar from getting too low.

They recommend checking your blood sugar more frequently on the day you drink as well as on the following day to keep track of how alcohol impacts your blood sugar.

Reduce Stress
Stress can increase blood sugar, which most people find out immediately when doing routine chech throughout the day. And during times of stress, it can be difficult to face with the daily management of your disease, including controlling blood sugar levels. Exercise, biofeedback, meditation and psychotherapy may assist in lowering stress.

Get Sufficient Sleep
Not getting enough sleep chronically puts you at excessive risk of getting both heart disease and type 2 diabetes. The Sleep Foundation suggests that adults get between seven & nine hours of sleep every night.
There is evidence that too little or too much sleep could increase your blood sugar level if you already have diabetes. A study discovered that adults with prediabetes or untreated type 2 diabetes who slept below five hours or above eight hours per night had higher blood glucose levels compared to adults who slept between seven and eight hours.

Drink More Water
Drinking water is another great way to help reverse prediabetes and prevent type 2 diabetes. Water assists in the control of blood glucose levels, and it is also a healthy substitute for sodas and fruit juices. Those beverages are usually high in sugar.