You probably don't pay any attention to these numbers unless you've already been diagnosed with diabetes. If you consider yourself a sophisticated health care consumer, I bet you can recite your cholesterol numbers but not so much about your sugar.
There is good reason to know your blood glucose. Diabetes typically begins to wreck its damage on your organs and body years before it's diagnosed. The American Diabetes Association estimates at least a couple of million people walking around with the disease and have absolutely no clue. They also feel fairly confident that there are millions more who are in the danger zone known as pre diabetes.
The point is if you are in the prediabetes phase there is still time for you to make some simple changes in your lifestyle so that you can prevent the onset of diabetes 2. Untreated and undiagnosed diabetes can kill you just as surely as heart disease can.
What that means is that if you are over 45 you should have a fasting blood glucose test. If the reading is normal, the test should be repeated every 2 or 3 years, depending upon what your doctor advises. Your doctor may want to repeat it yearly depending upon your family history and the condition of your health.
Make a note and know your numbers.
To your healthy aging success,
Ruthan Brodsky
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