“November 13 is declared “National Prediabetes Day”
Senator Veronica Martínez García
Last Thursday, April 13, dear readers, the Senate of the Republic focused on the promotion of health and the prevention of diabetes mellitus by approving a opinion unanimously with 83 votes in favor, of the United Health and Legislative Studies Commissions, First, for which November 13 of each year is declared as the “National Day of PREDIABETES” and that is very good news! !
I met your proponent the Senator Verónica Martínez García a few days ago when, due to his efforts, he organized an event with different health secretaries: Mexico City, Tlaxcala, Colima, Querétaro, Guanajuato and Coahuila on Dr. Roberto Bernal Gomez, who presented the strategy that they followed during the Covid-19 pandemic and that it was very enriching to listen to them to determine the lessons learned from it. In fact, Dr. Bernal Gómez already documented it in a first book which is freely distributed and which I highly recommend.
Senator elected by the principle of first minority for Coahuila, Verónica is president of the Navy Commission and member of the National Defense Commissions; Culture; Radio, Television and Cinematography; Foreign Affairs Asia-Pacific-Africa and National Defense. She has shown great sensitivity in health issues, presenting various initiatives, a sign of good communication with Dr. Bernal Gómez. !! Congratulations!!
The initiative that I am commenting on today, the presented Verónica on Tuesday, September 7, 2021 and makes a great advance towards the visibility of a condition where the diabetes mellitus that worries us so much is just the tip of the iceberg, and pre-diabetes is the big problem where the State and society have to work together. if we want to be the great country we aspire to.
The intention when declaring on November 13 of each year as National Prediabetes Day is to raise awareness and create a new culture about better habits that strengthen health and that contribute to reducing diabetes mellitus by identifying it on time.
In the world’s largest database of the National Library of Medicine, MeSH descriptors (Medical Subject Headings) 2023 are used, defining the Prediabetes Status as the period of time before the development of symptomatic diabetes. For example, certain risk factors may be observed in subjects who subsequently develop insulin resistance such as in type 2 diabetes mellitus.
The prediabetes it means that blood glucose or sugar levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be diabetes. Glucose comes from the food you eat. Too much glucose in the blood can damage the body over time. If you have prediabetes, you are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. But by making a few lifestyle changes, type 2 diabetes may be delayed or prevented.
About one in three adults have prediabetes. It is more common in people who are overweight or obese; are 45 years of age or older; have a parent, brother, or sister with diabetes; they are not physically active; have health problems such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol; had gestational diabetes (in pregnancy); they have metabolic syndrome, they have polycystic ovary syndrome, and they are Hispanic or Latino like all Mexicans.
Prediabetes is very easily diagnosed through blood tests:
A) Fasting plasma glucose test: Measures blood sugar at a single point in time. You must fast (not eat or drink) for at least 8 hours before the test. Test results are given in mg/dL (milligrams per deciliter): A normal level is 99 or below; Prediabetes is 100 to 125; Type 2 diabetes is 126 and above.
B) A1c Test: Measures your average blood sugar level over the past 3 months. The results of an A1C test are given as a percentage. The higher the percentage, the higher your blood sugar levels: A normal level is below 5.7%; prediabetes is between 5.7 to 6.4% and type 2 diabetes is above 6.5%.
Be careful, if you have prediabetes, you can delay or prevent type 2 diabetes through lifestyle changes such as losing weight if you are overweight; do regular physical activity; follow a healthy, low-calorie eating plan, and in some cases, your doctor may recommend that you take some medications to get sugar into your cells.
From this column, I congratulate the Health Commission of the Senate of the Republic for this initiative and the Mexican researchers who are making prediabetes visible as the Dr. Dewi Hernandez-Montoya et al, who recently published that there is undiagnosed prediabetes in Mexican adolescents living in poverty in contexts affected by collective violence and that it represents barriers to accessing health services.
*The author is a specialist in general surgery, certified in public health, doctorate in health sciences and public administration, and is a re-elected deputy of the PAN parliamentary group in the LXV Legislature.
