If you have diabetes, you can now check to see how your blood sugar levels have been in the recent past. And you can do it at home. The home test, called the A1C (also known as glycated hemoglobin or HbA1c) test will give you a picture of your average blood glucose control for the past 2 to 3 months. (Some tests can report blood sugar levels as far back as 4 months.) The results can give you a good idea of how well your diabetes treatment plan is working.
Daily Testing Is Still Vital
The A1C test is an important tool for staying healthy with diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. But it can't replace daily self-testing of blood glucose. The A1C test doesn't measure your day-to-day control, which is why you can't adjust your insulin on the basis of your A1C test results.
The test was cleared by the FDA to be offered for over-the-counter use. Previously, it could only be done with a blood draw by a technician at a lab. Some companies make kits that require you to send a blood sample by mail to their lab for analysis. One company, Metrika, makes a kit – the Metrika A1c Now test – that delivers the results to you in minutes. To perform the test, the patient takes a blood sample from a finger with a lancet and places it in a monitor. The monitor displays test results in 5 minutes.
How Often?
People with diabetes should check their glycated hemoglobin level 2 to 4 times a year to monitor long-term control over blood glucose (sugar) levels. The level of glycated hemoglobin gives information about the average level of glucose in the body over a 90- to 120-day period. This test provides information to complement the info obtained from the daily finger-stick blood glucose tests, which only measure glucose at a single point in time.
Diabetes is a chronic disease in which blood glucose levels are too high. Abnormally high levels of glucose can damage the small and large blood vessels, which could lead to blindness, kidney disease, stroke, heart disease, or the need for amputation of digits or limbs. More than 20 million Americans have diabetes. It's likely that many of them will find the home glycated hemoglobin test helpful. |
