A coworker on mine recently got diagnosed as pre-diabetic. The condition is serious enough that he is now taking three separate medications for it. What he needs to avoid is the full type 2 diabetes: a lifetime of blood-glucose monitoring and kidney dialysis, if it gets bad enough.
Other than the meds, the prescription is simple, really. The coworker just have to eat right, exercise, and get enough sleep. Of course, what is easy on paper is really not when it comes time to move. It’s a drastic change for those who are used to a life of eating with impunity and not much exercising. The struggle is real when you’re trying to eat a salad while the people around you are eating cheeseburgers. Whichever pharmaceutical company figures out how to compress diet/sleep/exercise into a one singular pill is going to make all the money in the world.
Until then, my coworker is going to have to do the hard slog. So far, not so good. Just last week he went to the campus dinning hall to eat lunch, which is buffet style. Naturally then he stuffed himself to the gills, ruining his afternoon of productivity. It’s kind of disappointing to see a diagnosis of pre-diabetic isn’t enough of a wake up call for him. Especially considering he has a young daughter (and a wife, in Borat voice). Surely he wants to be healthy and functional for her sake.
The answer is of course yes - on paper. Wanting to be healthy and actually doing the steps to get there can be mutually exclusive. You’d think having a daughter to live for would be enough of an impetus, but we’ve yet to see the consistent change with our coworker. Hopefully it won’t take crossing over to full diabetes for him to actually get on with it.