Pre-diabetes

[Alisonagnes]

I have just been diagnosed as pre-diabetic As I have an adult daughter with type 1 diabetes I am aware of the importance of diet and exercise in managing this condition. However I’m struggling a bit because most of the advice doesn’t seem to relate very closely to me. I’m not overweight at 9 stones. I’ve been. Vegetarian since 1969, gave up smoking in 1985 and walk 6-7 miles a day (I have 5 dogs). I’d really like to be taking a pro active role in trying to avoid a full diabetes diagnosis but not sure where to start.

 

[Docb]

Hi @Alisonagnes, welcome to the forum and welcome to what i am beginning to think of as the twilight zone which is that occupied those of us who clearly are not type 1 but do not fit the stereotype pattern for type 2.

i see we are in the same age bracket and I put down the inability of my system to keep my blood glucose in bounds down to it being yet another system not performing as well as it once did. My approach is to be a bit pragmatic about it. Although my HbA1c at 54 is above the 48 diagnosis threshold, is of little concern to the DSN and provided I can keep it there through a combination of low carb eating and a couple of pills then I just treat it as being what it is. I would no doubt be thinking about it a bit differently if I were 40 years younger.

My thought for you is that you read around the forum and see if any of the dietary changes members have used can be fitted into your current routine without any disruption and just keep on letting those dogs take you out for exercise!

 

[Leadinglights]

Reducing your carb intake by making some modest changes to your diet may be all that is needed to bring you down into normal range. There is a vegetarian meal plan in this link for a low carb approach which may give you some ideas for modifying your diet, if you do not need to lose weight then making sure you have enough protein and healthy fats to replace the carb reduction. https://lowcarbfreshwell.com/

 

[Alisonagnes]

Thank you for this. I must confess I’ve never really thought about carbs and will investigate the low carb veggie options.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @Alisonagnes

Sorry to hear your glucose levels have been rising.

How was this spotted? Was it a regular getting-slightly-older check-up? Or were you experiencing symptoms that you wanted to get checked out?

There general upward trend in HbA1c as people get older, so some increases in circulating glucose levels are to be expected to an extent.

As you have a child with autoimmune diabetes, and don’t fit the classic phenotype for T2 it may also be worth considering whether your rising glucose levels may have an autoimmune source. There is a slow-onset form of T1 diabetes that can come on in later life sometimes called LADA, where the autoimmune destruction of beta cells happens more slowly over a longer timeframe, which can make it resemble T2 to begin with.

If standard T2 approaches seem to stop working after a while, it might be worth asking for further checks such as GAD antibody amd cPeptide just in case you have a different form of diabetes 🙂

 

[Alisonagnes]

Welcome to the forum @Alisonagnes

Sorry to hear your glucose levels have been rising.

How was this spotted? Was it a regular getting-slightly-older check-up? Or were you experiencing symptoms that you wanted to get checked out?

There general upward trend in HbA1c as people get older, so some increases in circulating glucose levels are to be expected to an extent.

As you have a child with autoimmune diabetes, and don’t fit the classic phenotype for T2 it may also be worth considering whether your rising glucose levels may have an autoimmune source. There is a slow-onset form of T1 diabetes that can come on in later life sometimes called LADA, where the autoimmune destruction of beta cells happens more slowly over a longer timeframe, which can make it resemble T2 to begin with.

If standard T2 approaches seem to stop working after a while, it might be worth asking for further checks such as GAD antibody amd cPeptide just in case you have a different form of diabetes 🙂

This is really interesting and full of information which I did not know. Thank you so much - I will discuss with my GP.