Blood pressure

[The_Doc_Man]

Well, my morning went well. I visited my general medicine guy. My BP was 138/72 and I had lost 5 pounds. My A1C was down 0.3 points and it went below one of the important thresholds. (I'll leave it at that.) A good checkup will brighten my day any time.

 

[Bee]

Great news on the HbA1c

 

[Jon]

Good news there Doc. What is an A1C?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Long-term glycosated hemoglobin. It's a measure of the long-term average amount of sugar in your blood. (As opposed to the more traditional "snapshot" method that gives you blood glucose.)

 

[Bee]

It's typically the average of the last 3 months (as it takes roughly 3 months for red blood cells to regenerate). It means I can't fingerprick and get a good reading - and then go and eat a chocolate bar thinking it won't show.

 

[Jon]

Ah yes, I have heard about that. I got a test done as a freebie. It was a quick test, which I then Googled to realise the one you are stating is the more reliable one.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Yes. The individual blood glucose reading is generally useless for long-term diagnosis, though you would be able to determine if someone were in hyper- or hypoglycemic shock and could then administer an appropriate palliative for the immediate condition. The only time this particular test is really useful is if you are taking a sugar sensitivity test where you take a sample, drink some sugary beverage, and take a few more samples to get a profile of the rise and fall of blood sugar over a period of a couple of hours. Otherwise, the A1C is the better diagnostic tool.

I should add that long-term trends in blood glucose CAN be useful when taken in consideration with other readings include blood lipids, so the test is not totally useless for diagnostic purposes. Just not so good by itself except in specific situations.