Diet and Health FAQ

Tagged As: pre diabetic diet

Question:
Hi...I've posted a few questions about my recent 2 hour pp bg of 150. My doctor ordered a fbs and that other one ...I forget the name...but the result was 5.8. The fbs was under 100 but I can't remember the exact number...I think maybe 83 or something like that. My husband is a pediatrician and says I don't have diabetes. He said it's more like pre diabetic. I haven't heard back from my doctor so I don't know his take on it. My husband said that my number needed to be higher than 6.0 to indicate that I'd had elevated blood glucose readings over the past three months. I'm trying to read as much as I can...I find I get a lot of useful, practical information from groups like this....my husband on the other hand has one of those don't believe what you read on the internet mentalities...he reads medical journals and says listen to your doctor. I'm really not supposed to eat large amounts of protein because I have a severe kidney stone problem....one 11 day hospitalization with two surgeries and lithotripsy x3...and constant infections. I've recently been on the Weight Watchers program...would this type of plan work OK until I can find a diabetic diet? I really don't know what to eat/not eat. Artificial sweetners are bad for my migraines so I try to avoid those.

Answer:
The name of the test you're talking about is Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c). Yours is at the high end of the normal range of 4% to 6%, but still within that range. Your fasting blood glucose level is well under the diagnostic threshold even for pre-diabetes (110 mg/dl) and *way* below the diagnostic threshold for diabetes (126 mg/dl). With those figures, you shouldn't be worried about being pre-diabetic unless you also have high triglycerides, are overweight and have a family history of diabetes. If you are still uncertain, an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test may help settle the matter. He's right.There is a wealth of good medical information on the internet. The problem is filtering out all the junk science, propoganda and just plain nonsense that gets posted. The internet is the hypochondriac's playground.Illness and stress can affect your blood sugars. If you've had any of these infections in the past few months, or if you still stressed after your experience, then it may explain your *slightly* elevated HbA1c. The Diabetic Diet is the Holy Grail of diabetes management. That is to say, there's a lot of people looking for it and arguing over it, nobody has actually found it (despite many claims to the contrary), and in fact there is no such thing. The best diabetic diet is the one you can stick to. The Weight Watchers program is perfectly suitable for most diabetics. However, the figures you have posted are definitely *not* diabetic. They don't even look pre-diabetic to me. Hope this helps.