Diagnosing diabetes

How do you know if you are diabetic or not?

I know fasting blood sugar > 126 means yes, below means no, in between means pre-diabetic.

The thing is, for example, you are an athlete, and you follow a diet (which happens to be low/controlled carb) and of course, do a lot of exercise/workouts, etc.

Is it possible that you may be diabetic without knowing it?

What I mean is that because you are an athlete, you watch the diet and workout a lot. But, in reality, if you stop the diet and the workouts for like 1 month, the actual fasting blood sugar levels may actually be above 126.

So how can you really tell your status, diabetic or not?

My other question is, once a diabetic, for example, is it possible to have readings below 100 (indicating you are no longer diabetic), with better diet and exercise, or even then, you are still a diabetic?

I don't really understand because if the 'diabetic' has readings below 100 then shouldn't they be considered non-diabetic? Because from what I've read, there is no cure for diabetes... so I'm kind of confused.

Thanks.

Hello Arzoo, please go back and read the answers to your original posts back in October.  I think you're asking some of the same questions again here.  In short, diagnosing diabetes requires a few tests, not once but maybe a couple of times.  It's true that even a normal person might register a "high" blood glucose reading once in awhile due to some circumstances, so in order to correctly diagnose the disease, the doctor will probably order a glucose tolerance test.  Another test, the A1c, records what your average blood sugar has been over the previous 3 months - but that's only an average.  A pre-diabetic may also have "normal" blood sugar readings after meals or morning fasting, like me, but this is because of my controlled diet and exercise plan.  Although I can register "normal" readings on blood tests, I am still a pre-diabetic.  And that term is actually deceiving.  For all intents and purposes, I am a diabetic, but I'm able to control my numbers so far.  If I ate the exact same food my husband eats, my blood sugar would be much higher in the diabetic range and then I would be considered "diabetic".  Diabetes, especially type 2, tends to run in families, so you need to be vigilant and have your blood sugar levels tested annually.  Athletes eat a lot of protein and carbs for energy but they probably don't consistantly test over the normal range for blood sugar.  (I'm presuming this because if they're not diabetic, their blood sugar would be normal.) The bottom line is that if a person has high blood sugar readings on more than one occasion, especially on the glucose tolerance test, that person is diabetic.  It might be that he can still control his blood sugar with diet and exercise but that person will always have problems with blood sugar.  You can call him a "pre-diabetic" if you want but it doesn't change the fact that he cannot eat carbohydrates like a normal person and have normal blood sugar readings afterwards.

I hope this has answered your questions.

I agree with you, Lanie, about not being able to be cured of diabetes. If a person is able to maintain "normal" blood sugar readings through diet, exercise,and/or supplements, good for him. But if he were to go back to eating like a "normal" person, without the exercise and supplements, his blood sugar would eventually rise again. That doesn't spelled "cured" to me. I would think cured would mean you could live a totally normal life eating carbs like a person without diabetes. Taking even supplements to control blood sugar means exactly that...controlled...not cured. As far as I've heard, the only true "cure" is a pancreas transplant. There was some thought that gastric by-pass cured diabetes. But some people have had it recur 10 years after the surgery. Andrew, just curious, but are you maintaining that you are cured or just controlling like the rest of us? If cured, are you still taking supplements? Have you tried going off of them to see what happens?

Hi metres, I've read so many various guidelines as to what blood sugar ranges diabetics should be aiming for that it's ridiculous.  According to Richard Bernstein's The Diabetes Solution, a normal person's blood sugar doesn't swing too wide and mostly is found to be in the mid 80's most of the time, with some exceptions.  If you look at material by the ADA, there are different goals for people without diabetes compared to people with diabetes.  It doesn't matter who you are or which type you have, high blood sugar over the long term will damage kidneys and hearts and blood vessels in anyone, so regardless of which type we are, we need to have pretty tight control of the blood sugar readings.  Fortunately we can indeed treat these symptoms.  I think we're all looking forward to the day when the pancreas can be "fixed" so we don't have to treat the symptoms anymore. 

arzoo: I hate to disagree with Lanie the moderator, but there is no disease the body cannot cure if given the proper nutrients. I have several friends that have been diabetic for 40 years plus and took insulin shots every day. Once they got on the nutrional supplements and remedies that I take, they no longer have to take insulin shots and eat what ever they want.

I do not count calories, carbs, or whatever, I eat what I want "now" I have no problem with high blood sugars. I have a fasting blood sugar in the 82 range and 1 hour or two hours after eating I am 105 to 110. Years ago I had a fasting blood sugar every morning of 150 and was lucky to keep it for that for an average.

Once I discovered the proper knowledge, I realize all those that say you are diabetic for life are lacking in knowledge. I could go on and on of those that have taken my advice and no longer take pills or insulin. I have seen people that were bed ridden and now they are as active as a 30 year old or 20 year old and these people are older than I am and I am 59, so don't tell me diabetes is not curable...

(I have edited your post and removed some unkind things you have said. Please re-read the Forum Rules especially #13:
13. Do not disrespect moderators. Be respectful in both the forums and any private communications with moderators. Moderators are volunteers that donate many, many hours of their own time to help in the forums and chat rooms. Violations of this rule will not be tolerated.)

Post Edited By Moderator (Jeannie143) : 12/1/2007 11:20:02 PM (GMT-7)

Thanks so much for all your help and insights. Things are a lot clearer for me now.

Andrew, I hope you can help help me regarding the nutrients and supplements along with everything else needed you mentioned to be able to get back from being diabetic before and now becoming normal. I was hoping you could provide me the details of your regimen that changed your status.

The reason being, my dad's labs currently run at around 123, and he doesn't want to stop eating rice, sweets, soft drinks, pastries, and the like. So my guess is in due time he'll become diabetic.

So I hope to be able to help him then.

I can send you my email if you wish to expound there.

Thanks again for all the info.

Right on Lanie:) We all dream of a cure but unfortunately it is not here YET....One day i know it will. We just have to keep our bodies i good shape until them.

One important thing to remember is that type 2 diabetes has a strong genetic component- if you are born with the genes for diabetes- you have it- it's just a matter of time when your environmental conditions will cause those genes to be expressed - your sugar levels will go up, your insulin levels will become abnormally high (insulin resisitance causes this), and glucose and insulin based complications will arise.

These genes are very prevalent in the population. Diet, exercise, periodic famine, and harsh living conditions have favored the retention of these genes. In the past, individuals with the genes successfully lived through the hard times and were able to reproduce, those without them died. Several new type 2 diabetes genes were isolated during the mapping of the human genome. An individual may inherit more than one of these allelic mutations along with tightly associated mutations for increased weight, blood pressure and lipid dysfunction. That's why type 2 diabetes is unique to an individual- why one size doesn't fit all, so to speak. Why heart disease and its manifestationsa are often also present in diabetic individuals.

If you are a carb-controlled, heavy-duty athlete, you are imposing some of those environmental controls on your body. Lanie, by not eating carbs is, in essence, placing her body in a carb famine, and I know she exercises regularly -so these externally imposed controls work to overcome her metabolic deficiencies. The lack of carbs keeps her sugar and insulin levels low, and the exercise forces her body to take up glucose- even if her mitochondria are mis-firing.

A cure for type 2 diabetes would not only require a pancreas transplant if the individual had malfunctioning beta cells, but it would also require some sort of gene therapy to correct all genetic abnormalities that the individual has inherited- it won't happen in our lifetime.

The best we can do is to impose any and all external controls that work for our particular case. There is no medication, no herb that can correct genetic abnormalities.

As many have said- a cure is just that- take the substance, and the condition is gone. If you take an antibiotic to cure a bacterial infection- it's gone. Diabetes is never gone.

I just attended a two-day conference on diabetes, and was amazed at the amount of research that is being conducted, but the overhwelming take-home message was that there will be no magic bullet for diabetes- just like there will never be a magic bullet for cancer. We'll continue to treat the symptoms of the disease, get better at it, but that's as good as it gets for the forseeable future.

Now type 1 is a different story altogether- a pancreas transplant could indeed - cure it as long as the individual doesn't have insulin resistance ( type 2) also.

Best to all,

Sandy