These lifestyle changes are key to diabetes prevention
The University of Kentucky Public Relations & Strategic Communications Office provides a weekly health column available for use and reprint by news media. This week’s column is by registered dietitian Tami Ross, the diabetes prevention program coordinator for UK Healthcare’s Barnstable Brown Diabetes Center.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 1, 2025) — About 1 in 3 Kentuckians have prediabetes and often go undiagnosed due to a lack of noticeable symptoms.
Prediabetes occurs when blood sugar levels are higher than normal but not yet in the diabetes range. If left unchecked, prediabetes can lead to type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke.
It’s important to know that prediabetes can be reversible, and with the right lifestyle changes, individuals can significantly reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Two key lifestyle changes are losing a modest amount of weight and getting regular physical activity. When considering how much weight one should lose, 5-7% of your starting weight can be impactful. For someone that weighed 250 pounds, that would mean losing 13-18 pounds.
It’s also recommended to work in 150 minutes of a week of moderate intensity activity. This can include activities like walking, shoveling snow or raking leaves. Your weekly activity should average about 30 minutes a day, five days a week.
There’s a straightforward quiz to help you determine if you may have prediabetes. Those questions are:
- Do you have a mother, father, sister or brother with type 2 diabetes?
- Have you ever been diagnosed with high blood pressure?
- Are you over 40? (You are at a higher risk for type 2 diabetes the older you are.)
- Do you have a sedentary lifestyle (i.e., not much physical activity)?
- Are you overweight?
If you answered yes to many of those questions, you’re likely to have prediabetes, but only your doctor can diagnose it for sure with a simple blood test There is no better time than now to prevent or reverse prediabetes.
If you have any questions, reach out to your primary care physician for more help.
UK HealthCare is the hospitals and clinics of the University of Kentucky. But it is so much more. It is more than 10,000 dedicated health care professionals committed to providing advanced subspecialty care for the most critically injured and ill patients from the Commonwealth and beyond. It also is the home of the state’s only National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, a Level IV Neonatal Intensive Care Unit that cares for the tiniest and sickest newborns, the region’s only Level 1 trauma center and Kentucky’s top hospital ranked by U.S. News & World Report.
As an academic research institution, we are continuously pursuing the next generation of cures, treatments, protocols and policies. Our discoveries have the potential to change what’s medically possible within our lifetimes. Our educators and thought leaders are transforming the health care landscape as our six health professions colleges teach the next generation of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health care professionals, spreading the highest standards of care. UK HealthCare is the power of advanced medicine committed to creating a healthier Kentucky, now and for generations to come.