Diabetes and Prediabetes

Metabolic syndrome is a constellation of problems that often includes diabetes or Pre-diabetes. What are the other conditions? Being overweight, especially when extra pounds accumulate around the midsection; having high or borderline-high blood pressure; having high triglyceride levels; and having low HDL (good) cholesterol. Specifically, you have metabolic syndrome if you have diabetes or Pre-diabetes

For years, type 2 diabetes was called adult-onset diabetes because it usually begins later in life. In recent years, however, as more children have become heavier at earlier ages, type 2 diabetes has increasingly been seen in teenagers and young adults. Of all people with diabetes, more than 90 percent have type 2 diabetes.

The number of people suffering from type 2 diabetes and related conditions has skyrocketed over the past Fifty years. And more and more people have blood-sugar levels that, while not high enough to qualify as diabetes, are too high for good health. This condition goes by the name glucose intolerance, or Pre-diabetes.