Are You at Risk?

Women with known risk factors for diabetes should be particularly vigilant for signs of the disease. Risk factors are characteristics that appear to be associated with a disease. They might include personal behavior or lifestyle, environmental exposure, or an inherited trait that scientific evidence has associated with a disease. Having one or more risk factors increases your chance of developing a disease but does not mean you will definitely get it. On the other hand, not having a risk factor for a disease doesn't mean you are home free--it simply means that your likelihood of developing it is not high.

Take the following quiz to see if you might be at risk for developing prediabetes and diabetes. If you check off one or more of these statements, you are at risk. In addition, risk goes up with age, particularly after age forty-five.

My BMI is 25 or greater (see our BMI table and calculator).
I have a parent, brother, or sister with type 2 diabetes.
I am African American, American Indian, Asian American, Hispanic, or Pacific Islander.
I have had gestational diabetes or have given birth to a baby that weighed nine pounds or more.
I have been told that I have high blood pressure, or my blood pressure is 140/90 or higher.
My cholesterol and/or triglyceride levels are not normal. My HDL (the so-called good cholesterol) is 50 or lower and/or my triglyceride level is 250 mg/dl or greater. (Triglycerides are fats that circulate in the bloodstream along with cholesterol.)
I am fairly inactive. I exercise fewer than two times a week.

If you think you are at risk, talk to your physician at your next annual physical. Request a blood glucose test. The idea of preventing diabetes is relatively new to physicians as well as to the public, so you might have to broach the subject. Prediabetes is not just a warning of diabetes. Someone with blood sugars in the prediabetes range is also 1.5 times more likely to have cardiovascular disease, even if she never develops type 2 diabetes. There is evidence that the same strategies that help prevent diabetes, specifically, eating less fat, losing weight, and becoming more active, will, when combined with medication to lower blood pressure and cholesterol (if prescribed), help prevent heart disease as well.

Disclaimer: This book and web site are meant to educate, but should not be used as a substitute for personal medical advice. Readers should consult their physicians for specific information concerning their individual medical conditions. The authors have done their best to ensure that the information presented here is accurate up to the time of publication. However, as research and development are ongoing, it is possible that new findings may supersede some of the data presented here.

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