With diabetes being a more common disease as obesity rates increase, some individuals may find themselves in an early onset stage, or pre-diabetic.

Guthrie County Hospital Registered Nurse Christine Drake says that there are some ways to diagnose if someone is pre-diabetic. She tells Raccoon Valley Radio that just like diabetes, one way is blood sugar levels.

“Typically they’re running 101 to 125. Once you get to 126, and they do it with a fasting blood sugar on two separate occasions, and it’s 126 or above, that’s diagnostic for type 2 diabetes. So in pre-diabetes, our blood sugars are between those, it’s below 126 but it’s above 70 to 100.”

Drake mentions that the onset of pre-diabetes can be brought on by increased weight from inactivity, or reduced activity levels, along with getting older and family history. She adds that with proper management of risk factors, individuals can prevent the development of pre-diabetes, or keep it from advancing to Type 2 diabetes.