Re:America’s losing battle against diabetes
by mnw21cam on Saturday August 14, 2021 @07:04AM
(#28179714)
And that reason would be?
HbA1C is effectively a measure of the average amount of sugar that has been in your blood over the last couple of months.
A spot sugar level is the amount of sugar in your blood right now, and can vary a huge amount, depending on when you last ate, what you ate, and what exercise you have just done. It's less useful. You can do a fasting blood glucose, and a glucose challenge, but these tests are much more inconvenient for the patient.
Outside the US, most testing has switched to HbA1C for these reasons.
HbA1C is effectively a measure of the average amount of sugar that has been in your blood over the last couple of months.
A spot sugar level is the amount of sugar in your blood right now, and can vary a huge amount, depending on when you last ate, what you ate, and what exercise you have just done. It's less useful. You can do a fasting blood glucose, and a glucose challenge, but these tests are much more inconvenient for the patient.
Outside the US, most testing has switched to HbA1C for these reasons.