Blood tests & diabetics

       Because diabetes has many symptoms, it can sometimes be confused with other diseases and conditions. In fact, some people have no symptoms until the disease has caused a lot of damage to their bodies. Fortunately simple blood tests reveal diabetes.
       The most common test is a blood glucose test. It shows your blood sugar at the time it is taken. In this test, blood is drawn and tested before or after a meal. (Usually this test is a fasting glucose test, where you fast for six hours or overnight before your blood is drawn.) Since your blood sugar can vary a lot over the course of the day, this is not a definitive test for diabetes. But it alerts the doctor that diabetes may exist, and further testing is needed.
       If your blood glucose showed an abnormally high or low blood sugar level, a second test is needed. This test is called a A1C. An A1C (also known as glycated hemoglobin or HbA1c) test gives a picture of your average blood glucose for the past two to three months. In some ways, the A1C test is like a baseball player’s season batting average. Both A1C and the batting average tell you about a person’s overall success. Neither a single day’s blood test results nor a single game’s batting record gives the same big picture.
       An A1C test works like this: Hemoglobin is found inside red blood cells. Its job is to carry oxygen from the lungs to all the cells of the body. Hemoglobin, like all proteins, links up with sugars such as glucose.
       When you have uncontrolled diabetes, you have too much sugar in your bloodstream. This extra glucose enters your red blood cells and links up (or glycates) with molecules of hemoglobin. The more excess glucose in your blood, the more hemoglobin gets glycated. It is possible to measure the percentage of A1C or glycated hemoglobin in your blood.
       Let’s suppose your blood sugar was high last week so more glucose linked (glycated) with your hemoglobin. This week, your blood sugar is back down. Still, your red blood cells carry the “memory” of last week’s high blood glucose in the form of more A1C.
       Your level of A1C changes as old red blood cells in your body die and new red blood cells (with fresh non-glycated hemoglobin) replace them. The amount of A1C in your blood reflects blood sugar amounts for the past 120 days, or the average lifespan of a red blood cell.
       In a person who does not have diabetes, about five percent of all hemoglobin is glycated. For someone with uncontrolled diabetes, the A1C level is higher than normal. How high the A1C level rises depends on what the average blood glucose level was during the past weeks and months.
       For someone who is not a diabetic, the level of A1C (glycated hemoglobin) is normally between four and six percent. When a person is a diabetic, the A1C may be eight percent or higher. According to the American Diabetes Association, diabetics are considered to have their diabetes under control when their A1C is seven percent or below.
       My last A1C result was 7.2%, which is a drop from my first test when my A1C was a whopping and deadly 8.4%. This means I’m slowly getting my diabetes under control. We’ll talk about how I’m doing it and what treatments exist for diabetics in the next article.

Read previous articles on the Symptoms of Diabetes and What is Diabetes.

For individual health care questions, consult your doctor. For more information about diabetes, visit the website for the American Diabetes Association.
 
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