Change appears to be coming for diabetes care. The HbA1c test may not be the safest approach for diabetics to follow in preventing complications. Instead, experts are saying the average blood glucose level per individual will add clarity to diabetic patients looking to manage their disease.
A study supporting the change showed a close correlation between average glucose and HbA1c levels. So the myth, busted is: maintaining an average blood sugar is a safer approach for diabetes management -- NOT CHASING A UNIFORM HbA1c value. The fluctuation in blood sugar is what causes complications in the small vessels of the eyes, kidneys and peripheral nerve endings. For example - sustaining a blood sugar of 200 mg/dL is a lot safer than waking at 240 and ushering a boatload of sugar into your cells to drop your sugar to 80 mg/dL. It is the transfer of glucose into the cell that causes the injury to cell membranes and resulting complications.
Think of it like the movement of the ocean. High tide to low tide happens gradually, over the course of many hours throughout the day. When a storm hits - the waves become turbulent, crashing against the shore causing erosion. Is the human body any different? I'm not a doctor -- but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last week.
1. The change to common-sense is long past due.
I have always maintained(found on my Blog Site) that glucose values in real-time portray more accuracies as far as a profile of blood glucose management is concerned.
With the A1C's dependability, the numbers could easily be influenced (since it is all mathematical) by the prevalence of many Hypoglycemic Episodes within that 3 month period.
So, the person might have days that fluctuate between very high and low blood sugars and then have an A1C that shows a HgbA1C of 6.3 which in reality is a distortion of what is really going on.
Posted at 8:30PM on Jul 6th 2007 by BetterCell