Test to monitor diabetes a powerful tool for good health

(Inside Aotea, December 2011)

A test showing your average glucose levels over a few months is proving a winner in the fight against diabetes.

As Aotea’s Biochemistry team leader Kim Allan explains, an HbA1c test can measure the concentration of glucose in your blood for the life of your red blood cells — about three months.

Other laboratory tests, such as a fasting glucose or glucose after a meal, can only show your glucose levels at the time the test was taken.

"This can give a completely wrong impression," says Kim. "Those tests may show better than usual results for that day or high results after unhealthy food, but the beauty of HbA1c is that it shows your history."

The HbA1c test, then, gives you a good picture of your progress in eating healthily and keeping control of your glucose levels over a period of time.

Home glucose testing is important, too, for day-to-day management but HbA1c is a great independent tool for helping people see how well they have been doing overall in managing their diabetes.

Insulin-dependent diabetic patients can get an idea of how well they have been managing their insulin therapy.

Non-insulin-dependent patients can get a better idea of how they can improve their health through good food and exercise or if they need to discuss changes of their tablets with their doctor.

As well as monitoring glycaemic levels,HbA1c is now generally also the tool of choice to diagnose non-insulin-dependent diabetes and those patients who are borderline diabetics.

HbA1c is a form of haemoglobin, an essential protein in your blood that is present in the red blood cells and carries oxygen around the body, and that attracts glucose. So the more glucose in your body, the more will be attached to your haemoglobin to become HbA1c.

Over time, the higher your blood glucose, the higher your HbA1c will be.

That historic record is what makes it so useful for helping to monitor and control your glucose levels; and as Kim says -- people with good glycaemic control have fewer problems with diabetes related health disorders, such as kidney, eye and circulation problems.