Atkins Diabetes Revolution Read Online Free PDF Page A

challenge during a glucose tolerance test goes above 140 mg/dL (milligrams per deciliter) but is still less than 200 mg/dL, is called impaired glucose tolerance. (We’ll explain more about how we measure blood sugar levels and what they mean in Chapter 6, Diagnosis: Diabetes.)
    As the condition progresses, your fasting blood sugar (the amount of sugar in your blood after not eating for 8 to 12 hours) will slowly begin to rise. Once your fasting blood sugar hits a level of 100 mg/dL to 125 mg/dL, you have impaired fasting glucose, or prediabetes. Dr. Atkins observed that individuals with this condition could also have above-normal levels of blood sugar after eating a high-carbohydrate meal. Florence S. is a good example. At 61 years old and five feet three inches tall, she weighed 141 pounds. Florence had signs of metabolic syndrome and was taking a number of medications for high blood pressure and abnormal lipids. During her glucose tolerance test (GTT), her fasting blood sugar was 114, revealing prediabetes; at the half-hour point of the GTT, her blood sugar was 198; at one hour, 215; at two hours, 173; at three hours, 83; at four hours, 76; and at five hours, 89. As you’ll learn in a later chapter, this blood sugar pattern is the “high-low curve.”
    If you have progressed to impaired glucose tolerance or if you have reached the point of impaired fasting glucose, you have what is called prediabetes. Now things are getting really serious—so serious that we’ll have to spend all of Chapter 5 discussing prediabetes and what it means for your health.
    Unless action is taken to stop the underlying cycle of insulin resistance and hyperinsulinism, then the body’s compensatory mechanism of overproduction of insulin will continue. As your insulin resistance becomes more severe, your blood sugar levels become increasingly difficult to control and your pancreas becomes increasingly stressed. Without proper intervention, you’ll move from prediabetes to the next stage of full-blown Type 2 diabetes.
    ARRIVING AT DIABETES
    Stage 5 represents the early phase of true diabetes. In this stage, your fasting blood sugar is usually 126 mg/dL or higher, and your blood sugar after meals will consistently be even higher above the normal range. At this point, most people continue to have high levels of insulin production combined with severe insulin resistance.
    Unless dramatic intervention occurs, the huge amounts of insulin your pancreas is forced to produce will eventually lead to a loss of pancreatic beta cell function.Indeed,you may lose so much beta cell function that your pancreas is making little or no insulin. By now, to survive,you will require the daily administration of insulin.When this happens, you have reached stage 6—insulin-dependent diabetes.
    Oftimes, it is only when you have reached these last two stages that a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes is finally made. Now the diagnosis is hard to miss. Your fasting blood sugar is in the diabetic range of 126 mg/dL or higher, and the classic symptoms of increased thirst, increased hunger, and increased urination occur. In some cases, unexplained weight loss and blurred vision also occur. By now, insulin resistance, hyperinsulinism, and hyperglycemia have been present for a long time, perhaps years, silently causing damage.
    ARE YOU AN UNDIAGNOSED DIABETIC?
    According to the American Diabetes Association, of the 18 million Americans with Type 2 diabetes, somewhere between 5 million and 8 million don’t know they have it. Here’s one reason that early diagnosis is so important: Retinopathy, blood vessel damage to the eyes, begins to develop at least seven years before clinical diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes is made based either on symptoms or standard blood tests. 7 , 8
    Some undiagnosed diabetics will find out the hard way: when they end up in the emergency room with a heart attack, a stroke, kidney disease, or other vascular conditions. Others will learn the truth when they visit