Valencia hospital discovers red blood cell which affects diabetes blood sugar reading

[Northerner]

SCIENTISTS at a Valencia hospital have discovered a type of red blood cell which ‘interferes’ with diabetes test results, making them appear either better or worse than they are in reality.

Dr Carmen Quiñones from the laboratory at the Hospital Clínico in the city says her team began to suspect an element in the blood was causing a false reading when a diabetic patient went for a routine test and his levels of the haemoglobin known as glycade was ‘abnormally low’ – more in the range of that seen by a patient who is not diabetic.

Glycade is the blood cell which is used as a blood-sugar indicator in diabetes sufferers.

http://news.gnom.es/news/valencia-h...l-which-affects-diabetes-blood-sugar-readings

 

[trophywench]

I've never heard of 'Glycade' before?

Wonder where that leave you though - how do you tell what your BG is, and treat your D?

- There are more questions than answers, the more I find out the less I know ..........

 

[Northerner]

My thoughts also Jenny

 

[KookyCat]

I'll not have tht particular mutation if you don't mind, that would make life impossible unless they can tell from the specific variation on the gene the direction of the error and calculate a correction factor, otherwise how would they cope

 

[Andy HB]

The way I read that article is that they can account for this mutation when doing the blood analysis. So, going forward, we should be ok. It's just that we don't necessarily know what was going on in the past.

However, I suspect that this is a rare problem and won't affect everyone.

Andy (here's hoping) HB 🙂