For those with diabetes, do you ever wonder why your blood glucose, or blood sugar, is different from day to day or even within the same day? It is because many different factors affect blood glucose, such as what you eat (when and how much), medications, exercise, sleep, age, genetics, health conditions, and hormones such as insulin.
Because your blood glucose changes a lot, one measurement might not reveal the full picture. Also, every study that looks at blood sugar levels finds slightly different results because every sample population is different. Therefore, we use ranges when we measure blood glucose.
Here are a few metrics commonly used to understand and monitor blood glucose levels:
Fasting Glucose: Fasting Blood Glucose (FBG) is your glucose level after fasting for 8 hours.
Patients without diabetes should be below 100mg/dL.
Patients with diabetes should be between 70-130 mg/dL.
2 Hour Post Prandial Glucose: is your glucose level 2 hours after the start of your meal.
Patients without diabetes should be less than 140mg/dL.
Patients with diabetes should be less than 180mg/dL.
A1C: Also referred to as Hemoglobin A1c is taken by a blood draw and it relies on hemoglobin which is part of the red blood cell that carries oxygen throughout your body. When you have glucose in your blood, it sticks to hemoglobin. This is called glycation. The more glucose that is in your blood, the more it sticks. And it can stay there for around three months – about how long the average red blood cell lives. It measures the average amount of glucose that’s been attached to hemoglobin over time.
An A1C test result is reported as a percentage. The number represents the portion of hemoglobin proteins that are glycated (holding glucose). The higher the percentage, the higher your blood sugar levels have been over the last few months.
Patients without diabetes 4-5.6%
Patients with diabetes 6.4% and up
*A patient with an A1c of 9% has an average blood glucose of 212 mg/dL. This could indicate that the patient most often has a blood sugar of 212, or it could mean that the patient’s blood sugar is much higher and much lower than 212 and averages in the middle.
References:
https://snaq.io/blog/normal-glucose-levels/
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diagnostics/9731-a1c
All Blogs are written by Professionals in the fields of Nutrition, Human Development and Diabetes.