Pat Kringas, RN, MA, CDE, works with young people suffering from diabetes or pre-diabetes at the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center in Northern Manhattan . Through her work as a research coordinator for the Center's clinical trials, she helps many families understand and deal with the risks of this dangerous disease. Here she explains what these diseases are and how they affect people who have them.

Q: What is pre-diabetes?

A: Pre-diabetes is when a person has higher than normal blood glucose levels. Doctors can test these levels two ways: 1) the more common way is to test someone after they fast and 2) the other way is to test someone two hours after they eat. It is important to test a person both ways, since it is possible that two hours after a person eats they will have higher than normal blood glucose levels, even if their levels are normal after fasting.

The higher their glucose level, the more likely it is for a person to have diabetes or pre-diabetes. If the person has higher glucose levels than normal, but they are still below the level for diabetes, they have pre-diabetes. The arrow below shows the blood glucose levels expected from a fasting test.

Q: If somebody has pre-diabetes does it mean they will definitely get diabetes?

A: No. Diabetes is preventable. If you are tested and your doctor tells you that you have pre-diabetes early enough, you can make some lifestyle changes that can stop you from getting diabetes. Usually when I talk with people who have pre-diabetes they are happy to know that if they make some healthier choices they can decrease their risk of actually getting diabetes. Doing these three things will make a big difference:

1. Increasing your exercise.

The best thing to do is to increase the amount of walking that you do. In New York City, that's a very easy thing to do. You can start by walking across town, or you can go out and walk on your lunch break, or with friends. In New York City, 20 blocks is about one mile so it's easy to keep track of how far you've walked. If you wear a pedometer you want to aim for 10,000 steps per day. Remember to check with a doctor before starting any new exercise routines.

2. Stop drinking sugary drinks.
Taking sugary drinks like soda, lemonade, Kool-Aid^TM, Vitamin Water^TM, Snapple^TM or any sweetened drink out of your diet will make a huge difference in terms of lowering your chances of getting diabetes and losing weight.

3. Losing a small amount of weight.

It is not all about losing weight, and many times it's just about losing a very small amount of weight. No one's going to say you have to lose 10% of your body weight-you may only need to lose 10 pounds to decrease your chances of becoming diabetic!

Read more from Pat Kringas by clicking the links below:

• Why diabetes is a bigger problem today
• Who is more likely to get diabetes

To listen to our interview with Pat Kringas, click here for our podcast page.

Harlem Word is a series of interviews with Harlem health experts, written by HHPC and reviewed by our Health Advisory Board.