Testing for diabetes and pre-diabetes
The following tests are used for diagnosis:
• A fasting plasma glucose test measures your blood glucose after you have gone at least eight hours without eating.
• An oral glucose tolerance test measures your blood glucose after you have gone at least 8 hours without eating and two hours after you drink a glucose-containing beverage.
• In a random plasma glucose test, your doctor checks your blood glucose without regard to when you ate your last meal. This test, along with an assessment of symptoms, is used to diagnose diabetes but not pre-diabetes.
Positive test results should be confirmed by repeating the fasting plasma glucose test or the oral glucose tolerance test on a different day.
 What’s causing all this diabetes?
Medical experts agree that poor diet, physical inactivity, and overweight are the primary forces sucking the American public into the diabetes vortex. Diabetes can have staggering health consequences including blindness, amputations, heart attack and stroke, and kidney failure; but type 2 diabetes is almost entirely preventable. If you want to spare yourself and your family, resolve to:
1. Get moving. Physical activity is absolutely essential for good health, mental as well as physical. Five days a week for at least 30 minutes.
2. Get the sugar and refined grains out of your diet, and the fruits, veggies, lean proteins, and good fats in.
3. Achieve and maintain a healthy weight, which comes naturally if you increase your activity level and clean up your diet.
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