New Game Plan Targets Pre-Diabetics

(CBS)  Nearly 24 million Americans are afflicted with diabetes, up more than 3 million in approximately two years. That adds up to more than $170 billion in yearly healthcare costs.

But for the first time, doctors have a game plan for how to help the 57 million Americans who are dangerously close to developing the disease, reports CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jon Lapook.

New guidelines emphasize diet, exercise and weight-loss medication.

"There is a whole group of patients that are in a so-called gray area of pre-diabetes where they're not perfectly normal, but they also are not frankly diabetic and those are the patients who we really need to focus on," said Dr. Jacqueline Salas Spiegel of New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center.

That pre-diabetes gray zone includes patients with a fasting blood sugar level of 100 to 125. Fasting blood sugar below 100 is considered normal; over 125 is diabetic.

About one-third of pre-diabetics will develop full-blown type 2 diabetes. And that's not the only danger.

"It can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. That means heart attacks, strokes, as well as … circulatory problems," said Spiegel.

It may be really hard to get people to focus on something that hasn't happened to them yet. But diet and exercise really do work, reducing the progression of pre-diabetes to diabetes by 60 percent.

[lonestartnow]

I am co-founder of the LoneStart Wellness Initiative. Both our workplace wellness and individual participant programs promote taking a proactive approach to achieving long term health and wellness by making better nutritional and dietary choices and finding ways to work more physical activity into our everyday lives. As this article points out, it is indeed hard to motivate people to act before they become ill, but we''re finding it''s not impossible. One of our recent workplace wellness challenge participants had been diabetic since in her teens. When she began the LoneStart Team Esteem Challenge her blood sugar RBS was 203 mg/dl. At the end of the Challenge period it was 122 mg/dl. Not perfect, but much improved. We''re finding too, that it''s not just the overweight and obese who need to be mindful of their nutritional choices. Hope it''s OK to do so, but I''ll invite anyone interested to look at our website at lonestartnow.com for some relevant and related information. There are free downloadable recipes articles on both the Workplace and Hospital pages as well as on the Blog.

[davidbthelen]

It costs about the same to purchase a walking treadmill or stationary bicycle as compared to a doctor%u2019s visit.
Many times, family members are left in the dark to what to do about a love one%u2019s newly diagnosed disease.
Perhaps DVDs could be handed out to patients and their family members in order to educate them on such items as what to buy at the grocery store. The DVDs could also show patients how to begin exercising on the fitness equipment.
Coupons could be awarded for those who watch the DVDs for such items as the exercise equipment and healthy cookbooks.
If the patient does lose the weight, patients could be awarded the full purchase price of the exercise equipment and for some doctor%u2019s visits.
The money spent on such items would be more than made up by the savings of preventing complications to type-2 diabetes.

[greeneyes222]

"New guidelines emphasize diet, exercise and weight-loss medication."

Well, I know "pre-diabetics" (after they lowered the standard) who are already skinny and get plenty of exercise since they work construction, so the assumption that everyone is overweight or lazy is just wrong.

It''s far more like the problem is caused by diet, in particular processed food including things like corn syrup. None of us really know what''s in that stuff. So I''d say this game plan completely misses the mark.

[oneworldusa]

The doctors reduced the diabetes threshholds a few years ago to keep patients coming in and to make money off selling prescriptions.

[carlylaine]

Why do you think doctor''s want to keep us alive, ''healthy'', and broke? It''s so they can have the big cars, fancy vacations, and *** on the side. The bottom line is they take our money and make themselves rich...

[alphaa10-2009]

US Neurologist and CNN health advisor Dr. Sanjay Gupta has drawn attention to the widespread use of corn syrup and corn sweeteners in human food.

Such ingredients, he says, are not only unhealthy, but contribute to a national epidemic of obesity, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, etc.

Dr. Gupta says corn sweetener is bad enough when used to fatten feed lot cattle (whose systems begin to break down under the unnatural regime, and need antibiotics simply to make it to market). A "prime beef" burger, for example, is mostly fat by design.

But to force-feed the American nation on corn sweetener fattens not only the wallets of grain producers like Archer Daniel Midlands (ADM), but fattens all Americans, disposing them to disease onset patterns unheard of in preceding generations.

[baileyccc]

These clowns are "Selling Sickness". Diabetes is one of their "Cash Cows". Soon their "cholesterol scam" will end in 2012 when the World Patents come off and they will have an 82% drop in price for the poisonous "statin drugs". They still have chemotherapy and alzheimer''s for their coffers. They cure nothing, controlling symptoms is where the profit lies.

[alphaa10-2009]

Diet is a very powerful factor. I know of one woman whose weight is a medical crisis for her, and she benefits from sincere sympathy and support.

One day, I quietly complimented her on the new outfit she was wearing, and without being too obvious about it, mentioned she looked slimmer, somehow.

She was pleased to hear my comment, but I was astounded when she said there was no magic diet pill behind the real loss I had observed-- and she knew why she had lost.

Her secret was to stop eating fast food, and prepack her lunches with things that are good for her and stick to a Mediterranean-class diet.

Plus, she has a new emphasis on exercise and a determination to limit intake. When she feels empty, she says she eats fruits and veggies to restore the full feeling.

BTW, the woman is a recently-confirmed type 2 diabetic, and she confessed she knew she had to make a radical change in her ways. It appears she is on her way back to health.

[blackyowe]

maxify55, you have that exactly right. I am too heavy but keep those carbs down and I am not diabetic at 50. I am not even borderline.

[Toma G]

This problem is only 60 years in the making. In 1950 only 1% of the population was diabetic. It''s now approaching 9% and the CDC is warning that 1/3 of todays infants can be diabetic in their life time if we do not make changes.

I was close to death from type 2 diabetes in Feb 2005 and now I am a type 2 diabetic who is very well controlled controlled with diet and no meds. It took a lot of searching on my part to find good answers.

I share for free what I learned to help myself in hopes of helping others. I maintain the website Diabetic-Diet-Secrets.com. What can keep me well controlled is really just an optimized healthy diet that is good for anyone.