Last spring, I finally made it into my nurse practitioner's office for a physical, my first one in about five years. (I'd been pregnant twice, moved across the country, bought and sold my first house-I'd been busy!) What I learned from my blood test results shocked and scared me: I was prediabetic.
去年春天，我终于去全科护士那儿做了身体检查，这是我5年来第一次检查身体。（我怀了2次孕、搬过家、买了又卖了第一套房子--我真的很忙啊！）但我的血液检测结果却让我大吃一惊、可把我给吓坏了：我患有前驱糖尿病。PreDiabetes isn't a disease the way pneumonia or cancer is; it's more like a big, flashing red warning that you're headed in the wrong direction. "It's a sign you may develop type 2 diabetes in the future," says John Buse, MD, director of the UNC Diabetes Care Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
前驱糖尿病和肺炎、癌症不一样，它更像是一个巨大的、闪着灯的红色警告：你正朝着错误的方向前进。"前驱糖尿病意味着你可能会患2型糖尿病，"北卡罗来纳州教堂山北卡罗来纳州立大学糖尿病护理中心的主任约翰·布斯医学博士说道。
As a longtime health journalist, I know having type 2 diabetes is no joke: That condition can double a person's risk of dying of heart disease, the number one killer of American women. It's also linked to many cancers and, if left untreated, to nerve and kidney damage and vision problems. But prediabetes can be harmful, too. "Even at the prediabetic stage, there's an increased risk for heart disease and stroke," says Don Kain, a certified diabetes educator at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. (In fact, prediabetes alone increases your risk of heart disease by 10 percent.)
入行健康记者多年，我知道患有2型糖尿病并不是闹着玩的。这一症状会使人们死于心脏病的风险翻倍，心脏病是美国女性的头号杀手。2型糖尿病也与很多癌症相关，如果不加以治疗，会导致神经和肾脏受损、导致视力问题。但前驱糖尿病也会给人们带来危害。"即使在前驱糖尿病阶段，人们患心脏病和中风的风险也会增加，"波特兰俄勒冈健康与科学大学的持证糖尿病教育专家Don Kain说道。（事实上，仅仅只是前驱糖尿病就能使人们患心脏病的风险增加10%。）
Prediabetes is easy to diagnose via a simple blood test called the A1C, which measures how much of your hemoglobin-a redblood-cell protein-has sugar attached to it. (Below 5.7 percent is normal, and anything between that and 6.4 is considered prediabetic; 6.5 and above earns you a diabetes diagnosis.) Yet even though nearly a third-29 percent- of American women are prediabetic, almost 90 percent of them don't know it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
通过一种简单的血液测试（A1C）测量你的血红蛋白（一种红细胞蛋白）上含有多少糖，就可以诊断出你是否患有前驱糖尿病。（5.7%以下是正常的，5.7%-6.4%之间则为前驱糖尿病，6.5%及以上则被诊断为糖尿病。）疾病预防与控制中心表示，然而，尽管近三分之一的美国女性患有前驱糖尿病（29%），其中近90%的人却对此并不知情。One of the biggest concerns with having too much sugar circulating in your blood is that it may trigger chronic inflammation that in turn is associated with everything from heart attack and cancer to Alzheimer's.
血液中含有太多糖引发的最大担忧就是：可能会引发慢性炎症，这反过来又与一系列疾病相关，包括心脏病发作、癌症和阿尔兹海默症。