Healthology - Type 2 Diabetes: Is It More Than Just Blood Sugar? (Video, Transcript)

Healthology - Type 2 Diabetes: Is It More Than Just Blood Sugar?: "Type 2 diabetes doesn't strike out of the blue. Instead, a person's body undergoes a series of changes. Listen as experts explain the clues that often foreshadow the onset of diabetes.

ANNOUNCER: An estimated 17 million Americans have Type 2 Diabetes. Most don't know it. Millions more are heading toward the disease.

ASTRID ALMODOVAR, MD: Type 2 diabetes is not a sudden illness. It is a process. It is the end product of a continuum of metabolic abnormalities. If you compare type 2 diabetes with a runaway train, you start, especially if you're a minority, you start with a ticket; you already have a ticket and a boarding pass. The moment you start getting sedentary and gaining weight, you start getting on the train and moving along the continuum of diabetes. We start with the metabolic syndrome, then we go prediabetes, and then we have full-blown diabetes."