Prediabetes
Borderline diabetes, impaired fasting glucose
What it is
Your blood sugar is higher than normal, but not yet high enough to be diabetes. Without changes, many people go on to get type 2 diabetes. This is the best time to act.
Common signs
- Often no signs at all
- Extra weight around the belly
- Dark, velvety skin on the neck or armpits in some people
How it is diagnosed
A health worker tests your blood sugar. A fasting sugar between 6.1 and 6.9 mmol/L, or an HbA1c between 5.7% and 6.4%, means prediabetes.
Tests
- Fasting finger-prick glucose — sugar level after no food overnight
- HbA1c — average sugar over the last 2–3 months
- Blood pressure and weight — check for related problems
How food affects it
Food and activity make a big difference. Losing a small amount of weight and walking 30 minutes most days can stop or delay diabetes. Eat more vegetables and beans, and smaller portions of starchy food.
Food as medicine, alongside your medicine. Food works alongside your medicines, not instead of them. Never stop or change your tablets without talking to your health worker.
Eat often
- Leafy greens, okra, garden egg and other vegetables
- Beans, cowpeas, lentils and moi moi
- Whole grains: millet, sorghum, teff, brown or ofada rice
- Fish, eggs and chicken without skin
- Whole fruit like guava, orange and pawpaw instead of juice
Eat in moderation
- Rice, yam, fufu, gari and ugali — smaller portions
- Ripe plantain and ripe banana
- Oils — use a little
Avoid or cut down
- Sugary drinks: soda, malt, sweetened zobo and juice
- Sweets and fried snacks (puff-puff, chin chin, mandazi)
- Sugar in tea and pap
- Alcohol
Get help urgently
See a health worker if you get very thirsty, pass urine often, lose weight without trying, or have wounds that do not heal.
General information, not a diagnosis. Always follow the advice of your health worker.