Fasting Glucose Reading of 119: How Dangerous Is This?

By Lorra Garrick | Last updated 09/24

Medically reviewed by Stacy Mitchell Doyle, MD

It’s not health anxiety if you keep worrying about your fasting blood sugar being around 119.

Because if you keep seeing 119, you’re in big trouble – and your excessive worrying is quite justified.

“A fasting blood glucose of 119 is outside of the normal range (100 or less) but less than the diabetic range (126),” says Stacy Mitchell Doyle, MD, resident physician of FoodTherapyMD and long-time advocate of plant-based nutritional protocols.

“What this means is that you are in the ‘prediabetic’ range,” continues Dr. Doyle.

“Your body is starting to develop a level of insulin resistance, which, if not reversed, will result in full-blown diabetes.”

Fasting Glucose of 119 Can Be Reversed Naturally

You can bring that fasting blood sugar of 119 down to below 100, but you must put in the effort.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that a fasting glucose in this range causes no symptoms.

Don’t use the “I feel fine!” excuse for blinding yourself from the reality: That diabetes looms just around the corner.

Dr. Doyle explains, “Prediabetes can be easily reversed with diet changes and weight loss.

“Plant-based diets with elimination of processed foods, processed sugars, soda, junk foods, fast-foods, and the severe reduction of meat and dairy, have been shown to be a highly effective way to lower blood sugar.”

There’s More to This than Preventing Full-Blown Diabetes

Dr. Doyle says, “Even a ‘prediabetic’ can begin, over time, to develop diabetes complications, like more vascular disease and high blood pressure, so it is important to change your diet and lose weight if necessary.”

Prediabetes is a fasting glucose value of between 100 and 125.

Exercise, as well, helps manage prediabetes by enhancing insulin sensitivity and promoting better blood sugar control.

When you engage in physical activity, your muscles use glucose more effectively, which lowers blood sugar levels.

Additionally, an exercises regimen of aerobics and strength training helps reduce body fat, particularly around the abdomen, which is linked to insulin resistance.

Remember this: Even if your fasting glucose number consistently hovers at around 119, you could be looking at the development of heart disease, the beginnings of chronic heart failure, and changes in the retina of your eye that foreshadow eventual blindness from diabetes.