Diabetes is a chronic disease that affects the way your body uses and/or produces insulin. Insulin is a hormone that controls blood sugar (glucose). It’s produced by the pancreas and released into the bloodstream to help cells use glucose for energy. In type 2 diabetes, your pancreas may fail to produce enough insulin, or your cells may resist its effects so that they don’t get the necessary glucose.

Also, be sure to read to the end to check out the YouTube video on why everyone should test their blood sugar.

EVERYONE Should Test Their Blood Sugar.

If you have diabetes, it is very important to monitor your blood glucose level and ensure it stays within range. But even if you don’t have diabetes, testing your blood sugar can tell you if there are digestive issues or hormonal imbalances that may be causing glucose levels to rise higher than they should be. It may also tell you if you are on the path to developing diabetics as you may be pre-diabetic or insulin resistant and not even know it.

Testing yourself daily will give an accurate picture of what is going on in the body and allow you to react quickly when something changes negatively (such as increased hunger).

Why? Because a diagnosis of diabetes is not the only reason your blood sugar could be elevated. Nevertheless, the effects of chronic, elevated blood sugar harm your health and damage your organs.

There are many reasons besides diabetes that can cause high blood sugar levels:

  • You may have insulin resistance, which means that the cells in your body do not respond properly to insulin. This can lead to high glucose levels, especially after eating a meal.
  • You may have an underactive thyroid gland (hypothyroidism), which decreases thyroid hormone production and slows down every cell in your body including those involved in metabolism. If you have hypothyroidism, it is important to treat it with medication and lifestyle changes so that you don’t develop other diseases like diabetes, heart disease and obesity. * You may experience stress caused by trauma or anxiety which causes hormones called glucocorticoids (such as cortisol) to flood into your bloodstream causing an increase in glucose production.
  • You may not be getting adequate or quality sleep or you may have sleep apnea.

Many Americans Have High Glucose Levels and Insulin Resistance and Do Not Realize It.

Your doctor may establish that you have insulin resistance if you have high blood sugar levels, high LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, high triglycerides (a kind of blood fat),  and low HDL (“good”) cholesterol. A combination of these disorders is known as metabolic syndrome.

In fact, many Americans have high glucose levels and insulin resistance and do not realize it.

Many people who have prediabetes or metabolic syndrome also do not know they have these conditions. This is because they rarely experience any symptoms until they develop full-blown diabetes.

Prediabetes and metabolic syndrome are not diseases; rather, they are conditions that can lead to disease over time if left untreated. It is important to treat the root cause once it is discovered and not merely the symptoms!

This Condition Is Often Referred to As Prediabetes or Metabolic Syndrome.

People with metabolic syndrome have a cluster of risk factors that increase the chance of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The diagnosis is made when you have three or more of these risk factors:

  • A waist size over 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women
  • High triglycerides (blood fats) above 150 mg/dL (1.7 mmol/L)
  • Low HDL cholesterol (<40 mg/dL in men, <50 mg/dL in women), or high ratio of triglycerides to HDL cholesterol above 4 (men) or 5 (women)
  • High blood pressure—130/85 mm Hg or higher on two separate occasions, or 135/85 mm Hg if you are age 60 years old or older

You Can Have Normal Glucose Levels and Still Have Insulin Resistance or Elevated Insulin Levels.

Diabetes is a disease that occurs when your body does not produce enough insulin or does not use the insulin it produces effectively. However, there are other diseases that can cause similar symptoms. Insulin resistance is a precursor to diabetes, but it doesn’t mean you have diabetes yet!

Insulin resistance means that your body produces insulin but does not use it very efficiently. When this happens, your body compensates by producing more and more of its own insulin and eventually this can lead to type 2 diabetes over time as your body will eventually require more and more insulin to achieve the same blood glucose control. Eventually your pancreas will not be able to keep up with this demand and it will burn out. Having high insulin levels chronically can also accelerate the aging process.

You Can Have Normal A1c Levels Yet Have Fasting Glucose Levels That Are Too High.

A1c is a measure of how much glucose is in your blood over a period of time. The A1c test measures the percentage of hemoglobin molecules that have been coated with glucose during the life span of red blood cells, which should be about 4 months.

A1c levels can be normal but your fasting glucose levels can still be too high. In this case, you may have “normal” A1cs but high fasting blood sugar levels, indicating insulin resistance and underlying metabolic syndrome (MetS).

In addition to diabetes and insulin resistance, many common diseases are caused by high blood sugar:

  • Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS)
  • Cardiovascular disease
  • Cancer
  • Fatty liver disease
  • Erectile dysfunction and dementia.

Therefore, all of these conditions should be treated aggressively, just like diabetes is treated aggressively.

And because these conditions are so common, especially in older patients, any time you see a patient over 50 or 60 with elevated glucose levels or insulin resistance, it’s important that they be tested for all three conditions. If they have one or more of these vascular risk factors (diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol), then they should be treated aggressively just like someone with diabetes is treated aggressively. The treatments include medication and lifestyle changes: losing weight if necessary; exercising regularly; controlling your salt intake; eating healthy foods; avoiding smoking and drinking alcohol in excess.

Diabetes specifically has been shown to increase heart disease risk by 200% compared to someone who does not have diabetes! In addition to being at increased risk for heart disease and stroke from having diabetes itself – which is why we take such good care of diabetics – diabetics also tend to have other vascular risk factors that make them even more likely than most people without diabetes to develop heart disease or stroke!

Be Sure You Test Your Blood Sugar Regularly.

  • You should test your blood sugar regularly as a part of an overall health plan.
  • Testing your blood sugar several times a day can help you determine how well the food you eat is working for you, and it may alert you to serious problems before they develop.
  • If your blood sugar is elevated, it means there are elevated levels of glucose in the blood. Elevated blood glucose levels are associated with diabetes mellitus, prediabetes (impaired fasting glucose or impaired glucose tolerance), metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance.

You can test your blood sugar very easily with an at-home testing meter. They are available nearly everywhere and online. If you are unsure what to look for in a blood glucose meter, check out our article here or you can view different blood glucose meters here.

How common is prediabetes?

In the US, more than 84 million adults over the age of 18 have prediabetes. This equates to around one in three adults.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that if you have high blood sugar, it may not be diabetes. In fact, most people who have elevated glucose levels do not have diabetes! And the effects of insulin resistance and chronic inflammation can harm your health. We recommend that everyone test their blood sugar regularly. If you are concerned about your prediabetes or metabolic syndrome risk, talk to your doctor about testing options.

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