Confused as to hba1c

[dvd]

Hi .. my hba1c result was 44 ... was told by DN that 42 was normal and 48 diabetic ... am following low carb, high fat diet ( not recommended by DN ) ...question is, when i go back in 3 months for another hba1c which will be taken fasting, what should my fasting morning BS be around at the moment so as to hold me 42 or below, want to kerp testing and keep a watch, hope this is clear as it all new to me ..thanks for any help ..

 

[Nyadach]

Fasting bloods don't do anything to effect the HbA1c, they will be using it to see if your basal is working correctly. The HbA1c basically gives you your average BG over the last 3 months, so your 44 (6.2%) means your average BG was 7.4mmoL. So it doesn't matter what the BG is as it won't effect the HbA1c...it will effect the test they will do to see what your background insulin is doing though which should be pretty stable hopefully...so exactly where it was a few hours after you last ate.

 

[Andy HB]

A very pedantic point, sorry. 😱

HbA1c is measured in mmol/mol (i.e. milli moles per mole)

Spot blood checks are mmol/L (i.e. milli moles per Litre)

Milli represents 1/1000th of a unit and a mole is a scientific measure and according to Wikipedia.

The mole is a unit of measurement used in chemistry to express amounts of a chemical substance, defined as the amount of any substance that contains as many elementary entities (e.g., atoms, molecules, ions, electrons) as there are atoms in 12 grams of pure carbon-12 (12C), the isotope of carbon with relative atomic mass of exactly 12 by definition. This corresponds to the Avogadro constant, which has a value of 6.02214129(27)×1023 elementary entities of the substance. It is one of the base units in the International System of Units; it has the unit symbol mol and corresponds with the dimension symbol N.

Not sure this helps any, but I wanted the units to be clearly stated.

Andy 🙂

p.s. The 1023 number above should read 10 to the power of 23, but I don't know how to do superscripts in these posts!

 

[Northerner]

Hi .. my hba1c result was 44 ... was told by DN that 42 was normal and 48 diabetic ... am following low carb, high fat diet ( not recommended by DN ) ...question is, when i go back in 3 months for another hba1c which will be taken fasting, what should my fasting morning BS be around at the moment so as to hold me 42 or below, want to kerp testing and keep a watch, hope this is clear as it all new to me ..thanks for any help ..

The first HbA1c you had done was slightly higher than the upper value they would hope for, for a non-diabetic - hence why they have suggested you are pre-diabetic. A 48 HbA1c would have suggested a diagnosis of diabetes.

Your fasting blood tests are measured differently - they are a snapshot of what your levels are at that moment. Ideally, you want these to be around 5 to 6 mmol/l, as shown by your meter. If you can keep your fingerprick tests around this level before eating, and no more than 7-8 mmol/l 2 hours after, then I'm pretty sure your next HbA1c will be fine 🙂 You have made quite a few changes since it was suggested you were pre-diabetic, so it is more than likely your next HbA1c will show an improvement - just keep up the good work! 🙂

 

[Andy HB]

To answer your question, though dvd, when I was diagnosed I was given certain ranges to aim for with my spot blood glucose checks:-

1) Before meals (fasting) --> 4-7mmol/L
2) 2hrs after meals --> 7-9mmol/L
3) Avoid --> >10mmol/L (hyper)
4) Avoid --> <4mmol/L (hypo)

There are variations on these ranges, but they are broadly similar.

Andy 🙂

p.s. See above!

 

[dvd]

thanks

Thanks all for the very useful information .. much appreciated ..