McHenry Times

'Tis the season to be jolly, but watch out exactly how jolly you get, the McHenry County Department of Health warns. 

While delicious delicacies and plentiful buffet tables will tempt many over the upcoming holiday seasons, overeating highly caloric foods can lead to unwanted consequences, MCDH said in a release. 

Exercising should remain a part of healthy regimen, as should eating healthy, not only to help keep stress at bay during this hectic season, but to help ward off diseases, such as diabetes. “Not only can diet and exercise help reduce holiday stress, but the risk of developing prediabetes is lower,” the release said.  

While having prediabetes doesn’t sentence one to a Type 2 diabetes, losing just 7 percent of body weight can work to decrease that risk by about 58 percent, Meaghan Haak, program coordinator for the MCDH Community Health Program, said in the release. 

This information jibes with what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been touting as well. 

“Most people develop prediabetes, which often has no visible symptoms, before developing Type 2 diabetes,” the press release said. “Prediabetes means a person’s blood glucose (sugar) level is higher than normal, but not high encough yet to be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.” 

Adding insult to injury, almost 25 percent of the adults who have diabetes are not aware they have the disease. For prediabetes, the numbers are even more shocking: of the 33 percent of Americans with prediabetes, almost all of them, or about 90 percent, have no idea they have it.