If your blood glucose levels are above normal but not within the range of type 2 diabetes, then it’s called pre-diabetes. In the United States, about 40 millions of Americans have pre-diabetes aside from the 24 million diagnosed with diabetes.
Most people with pre-diabetes are overweight, so treatment usually involves losing 5 percent to 10 percent of body weight through diet and exercise. A major study several years ago found that walking 30 minutes a day and dropping about 15 pounds can cut in half the risk of getting full-blown diabetes in patients with pre-diabetes.
Research has also found that taking a daily pill called metformin (more commonly known as glucophage) reduces the risk of diabetes in high-risk patients by almost a third. More commonly used for type 2 diabetes, glucophage is designed to work in concert with a proper diet and regular exercise.
Your doctor can educate you on how much medicine to take and when to take it. Generally, he’ll start you out with a low dose of the medicine and slowly increase your dose until your blood sugar is better controlled. Glucophage should be taken with meals.