Two types of readings are taken to assess blood sugar levels. Normally blood sugar rises after a meal. Fasting blood sugar is a reading that is taken at least eight hours after eating. A reading two hours after a meal may also be taken to see how much of a difference exists or to detect cases when the body does not react in the normal way.

Normal blood sugar levels: Fasting blood sugar less than 110 mg/dl. Blood sugar two hours after a meal that is less than 140 mg/dl.

Prediabetic levels: Fasting blood sugar between 110 and 125 mg/dl. Blood sugar two hours after a meal that is between 140 and 200 mg/dl.

Diabetic levels: Fasting blood sugar over 125 mg/dl. Blood sugar two hours after a meal that is over 200 mg/dl.

How to reduce your blood sugar levels and get control of diabetes

Diabetes and high blood sugar have a detrimental effect on many organs of the body. A person with diabetes is twice as likely as a person without diabetes to have a heart attack. Women with type 2 diabetes are at three or four times higher risk of heart disease than women without the disorder.

What happens is that diabetes increases the amount of fats circulating in the bloodstream. The fat gets stuck along the linings of the arteries and creates plaque that clogs the arteries. This makes it harder for blood to flow through the body, causing the heart to have to work harder and raising blood pressure. Higher blood pressure causes even more damage to the arteries.

Discover how to improve your health by controlling diabetes

Diabetes refers to several disorders that affect your blood sugar levels.

Prediabetes, sometimes called glucose intolerance, is when your blood sugar levels are higher than normal but not high enough to qualify as diabetes.

Type 1 Diabetes develops during childhood and is an autoimmune disorder. The immune system attacks and destroys the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas over a period of time. Since the body becomes unable to make its own insulin, insulin shots are necessary.

Type 2 Diabetes covers a range of diseases. In some cases, the pancreas makes too much insulin and the cells in the body don’t respond to it. This is referred to as insulin resistance. In other cases, the cells respond normally to insulin, but the pancreas doesn’t make enough of it because the pancreas doesn’t respond normally to blood sugar levels.

Can you really beat diabetes?