Q: My friend, 35 years old, was diagnosed with type II diabetes 6 months back. His fasting blood sugar is always normal (110 mg/dl). In fact as long as he never eats its always 80 to 110 mg/dl. Once he eats (medium to heavy diet) the sugar shoots upto 220 mg/dl. It takes 3 hours approx. to get the sugar level back to 135-140 mg/dl. He does not take any medicine. Is he really diabetic? During the time when he was diagnosed he was under stress. Can this be stress-induced diabetes? If a man eats rich and heavy food can sugar level in any way go till 200 mg/dl? If he is diabetic then why does it get back to the normal range within 3 hours? Is it necessary that sugar levels should return back to normal within two hours? Please help.

A:This person has diabetes. It is possible to have only postprandial (after meal) high blood glucose levels. This is called as postprandial hyperglycaemia. It is important to keep blood glucose below 180 mg/dl 2 hours after meals. As he has observed, taking small meals will help him. Incase he is taking larger meals, he can take Novonorm 1 mg 10 minutes before meals. Stress is an important factor for diabetes and de-stressing helps.