Prediabetes is the situation whereby your blood sugar is higher than normal but not yet high enough to be considered as type 2 diabetes. If not properly addressed, prediabetes can graduate to type 2 diabetes within 10 years. Moreover, prediabetes has the potential to cause heart and circulatory system complications.
Prediabetes symptoms
- Chronic fatigue
- Severe thirst
- Increased urination
- Increased appetite
- Fast weight loss
- Vision problems
- Sores that take long to heal or don’t heal at all.
There’s yet another way to diagnose prediabetes. You just need to follow a few steps, and you’ll diagnose the condition within a minute. The only tools you need are your fingers!
For a man, you need to hold up one finger. Don’t hold up any finger if you’re a woman. For those aged above 40, hold up one finger, two fingers if you’re aged above 50, three fingers if you’re over 60, whereas those aged below 40 years should hold up no fingers.
If you think that you’re not very physically active, hold up one finger. Don’t hold up any finger if you think that you get sufficient exercise.
If someone in your family has diabetes, hold up one finger, and hold none if no one in the family has had such problems in the past or now.
Hold up a finger if you’re struggling with hypertension, and none if your blood pressure is normal and stable.
If you’re obese, hold up three fingers; two fingers if you’re overweight; a finger if you’re just a little bit overweight; and none if your body weight is normal.
If you hold up all five fingers, then there’s a high chance that you have prediabetes. In this type of diagnosis, we use factors that many researchers believe are related to a high risk of diabetes. However, this does not necessarily mean that you’re prediabetic, but it is an excellent way to assess your condition.
Once you’re done with this test, you should determine how many fingers you’re holding up. If they’re five or more fingers, then you’re probably dealing with prediabetes. If there’s a possibility that you’re prediabetic, you need to get a blood test to determine the level of your risk of developing diabetes.
If the risk is high, consider making some lifestyle changes that will help to minimize blood sugar levels and lower the risk pf developing diabetes.
