June 6, 2008
What Your Dentist Should Do, #2: Monitoring Prediabetes
Prediabetes may not carry all of the health risks of diabetes itself, but it’s a precarious state that needs careful attention in dental care as well as metabolic care. Gum disease can worsen prediabetes, and push your metabolic status into the diabetes range.
Your dentist should work with you closely on monitoring your health and your oral health if you have prediabetes. People who have prediabetes need specialized dental care as do people who have diabetes.
You may have decided to read this blog because you’ve been told you have prediabetes. If that’s the case, you need to start talking with your dentist as well and monitoring your dental health closely. With prediabetes, gum disease makes it more likely you’ll develop diabetes. So if you’ve been told you have prediabetes and that you need to monitor your diet and get more exercise, here’s one more thing to do – see your dentist and talk frankly with him or her about your health and your concerns.
This may seem like an obvious, logical general suggestion. But there’s so much at stake that it’s critical to maintaining your optimal health status and avoiding diabetes symptoms that lead to catastrophic health events.
There are more than twice as many people in the U.S. who have prediabetes than those who have diabetes. If we’re ever going to stem the growing diabetes epidemic we have to nip it early, and proper preventive dental care can help stop the progression from prediabetes to diabetes.
Did you know that there is a closed loop between your dental health and your ability to successfully manage your blood sugar? For more diabetes information, get your free five-lesson mini-course on diabetes and your teeth at DentistryForDiabetics.com.
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