- What Is Normal Blood Sugar?
- When is it considered adult-onset diabetes?
- How much should you fast before taking a blood sample?
Blood sugar, or blood glucose, can be measured in whole blood or plasma (or serum, which is almost the same thing). The reference values, or “normal values”, are slightly different in these. Nowadays more measurement of plasma sugar is used. In the laboratory list, fasting plasma glucose is designated fP-gluc, serum f-gluc, and whole blood sugar fB-gluc. If fP-gluc (or fS-gluc) is more than 7.8 or fB-gluc is more than 6.7, it is diabetes. Now what is a normal blood sugar level?
The Right Limits
The diabetes blood glucose limits mentioned above have been agreed worldwide by experts. Especially adult-type diabetes develops gradually over months and years. Occasionally, disturbances in sugar metabolism can be detected before the agreed limits. The disorder can be detected by a sugar stress test in which 75 g of glucose solution is drunk and blood glucose is measured after two hours.
- The sugar solution raises the blood sugar, but if the sugar metabolism is working normally, within two hours the sugar level is back to normal. If, after two hours of stress testing, your blood sugar is still elevated, things are not right. In actual diabetes, a two-hour plasma value is greater than 11 mmol / l (more than 10 mmol / l in whole blood). If the two-hour values range from 7.8 to 11 mmol / l in plasma or 6.7 to 9.9 in whole blood, this is a sign of impaired glucose metabolism, the official name of which is glucose tolerance.
Impaired glucose tolerance is a form of pre-diabetes
Over the years, very many people will have their blood sugar levels slowly rising and the actual diabetes outbreak. Recently, a major Finnish study showed that in the pre-diabetes phase, moderate diet and increased physical activity effectively prevent the onset of diabetes. Therefore, the diabetes test is useful for individuals who are at increased risk of developing adult-type diabetes. The Diabetes Association of Finland website has a simple risk test . If the risk is high, it is advisable to lose some weight and increase physical activity, thus reducing the risk of diabetes.
Further instructions on fasting before fasting blood glucose: fasting 12 hours before sample, no alcohol for a couple of three days. A couple of glasses of water can be drunk the same morning, but smoking and coffee are avoided.
Last Words
Blood glucose balancing is a complex process that most of our bodies are able to perform automatically in most situations. But with diet and the right lifestyle choices, we can do even more to keep it steady and normal. Sometimes nutritional deficiencies, irregular or unhealthy eating can upset the balance and we may experience symptoms due to blood sugar swings. If this were to happen constantly in the body, it could, in the long run, also create an imbalance in our body weight, hormone function, stress tolerance and increase the risk of diabetes.
