Diabetes and Blood Glucose Levels

I have not been asked this question - Can You Have Diabetes If Your Blood Glucose is Normal? Fortunately, Kelley Pounds has a blog that answers this question. According to her, the answer is yes! Elevated blood glucose is a LATE sign of Type 2 diabetes. In fact, when your diabetes has advanced to the point when your blood glucose levels are elevated, you have already sustained significant damage. It has been estimated that at the diagnosis of pre-diabetes, as much as 50% of beta cell destruction has already occurred. And, at diagnosis of Type 2, as much as 80% destruction has already occurred. So, when did diabetes really start, at diagnosis, or 10-15 years earlier? I think we all know the answer to that question. Any physician can attest to the fact that by the time a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes is made, the patient is often in severe metabolic dysfunction, often with many of the elements of metabolic syndrome already present (insulin resistance, abdominal obesity, hypertension and dyslipidemia).

Fortunately, the book she refers to was available to me and I was able to read it.

The cover of the book is below and I will be reading it a second time, as the information is important. Kelley Pounds says I know I have mentioned this before, but this is one of the most important books to read about the prevention of diabetes. Diabetes starts long before diagnosis. Diabetes pathology starts long before your blood sugars are elevated.

In fact, if you have any of the diseases or conditions listed below, even with normal blood glucose, you already have diabetes pathology, even if undiagnosed with diabetes. One of the best methods for detecting early diabetes pathology is the oral glucose tolerance test with insulin assay. Remember, Type 2 is not primarily a disease of blood glucose disregulation, but insulin disregulation. Dr. Kraft spent years performing these tests upon thousands of patients and developed profiles that can help us to identify the earliest stages of diabetes.

Notice what Dr. Kraft says about diabetes in the presence of normal blood sugar: “If you have any of the pathologies of diabetes (athero-arteriosclerosis, cardiovascular disease, cerebral vascular disease, hypertension, nephropathy, retinopathy, peripheral and central neuropathy, and penile erectile dysfunction) you are diabetic irrespective of your glucose status! In the undiagnosed with any of the clinical pathologies noted above, especially those with normal fasting blood sugars, the insulin assay with oral glucose tolerance will confirm the diabetes diagnosis. The pathology of diabetes mellitus occurs in those with normal blood sugars.”

This is so important to understand. It is the very reason that if we have any risk factors for Type 2 (family history, overweight, belly fat despite being normal weight, high blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol, high triglycerides, PCOS, gestational diabetes, age/race/gender) that we must live a lifestyle, as if we already have diabetes, because, given the right test, it would be revealed that we already do!