Are Diabetes Tests Effective?

By Julia Hanf in Diabetes on March 13th, 2008

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by Julia Hanf

To understand diabetes testing, we must first understand the disease. Diabetes is a lack of, or improper use of, the insulin that our body produces. Our digestive system breaks down the foods we eat into a sugar substance, called glucose, which our body uses as fuel. When glucose enters our bloodstream, growth and energy occur. Our body’s cells require insulin in the blood to use glucose. Insulin is produced in the pancreas. While we eat, the pancreas creates insulin.

The pancreas produces insulin while we eat for the movement of glucose from the blood to the cells. These pancreases may or may not produce a good amount of insulin or the insulin produced may not be used effectively by the cells. This is when the body develops diabetes because insulin is very important to regulate the blood sugar level.

Diabetes, if untreated can prove to be life-threatening or may cause some other serious effects. It should be tested as and when you find any symptoms. There are various tests known worldwide to diagnose diabetes and ruling it out. One such test is sugar level test. This test requires a pinch of blood to measure the level of glucose in the blood. In this test, you will be asked to avoid anything eatable or liquid at least up to 8 hours before the test.

For patients that are already on dialysis treatment, this test has not been found to be accurate. The hemoglobin test does not give an accurate reading for those patients on hemodialysis. Hemodialysis is where the patient’s blood is purified of toxins by passing through an artificial kidney machine. A patient must undergo this treatment in the event of kidney failure. There is another form of dialysis, called peritoneal dialysis which passed fluid in to the abdomen. This dialysis treatment can be performed in the comfort of the patients own home. Due to the fact that the diabetic dialysis patients have higher blood sugar levels, the A1C test may not give accurate results. While this test was once going to be accepted as the standard, it is now being proven that it is not nearly as accurate as it was once thought. Nearly 200,000 hemodialysis patients might not be receiving proper treatment for their diabetes. With nearly 95% of diabetic patients needing dialysis treatment, there has not been any definitive research done to sway the experts one way or the other. Until such a time, the A1C test is still the most helpful test for diabetic patients.

The A1C test reacts with the glucose in a patient’s blood, measuring the hemoglobin percentage. The glycated-albumin test measures how the glucose reacts to albumin, a protein in plasma. For patients on hemodialysis, the glycated-albumin test brought higher blood sugar levels, than those that were tested with the A1C method. The difference may be due to the fact the A1C test relies on the red blood cells, which for patients on dialysis, do not survive for long. Patients on dialysis receive medication to help stimulate the red blood cells production rate.

To measure the hemoglobin percentage, the A1C test is most helpful because it reacts to the glucose. Reflected by this test is the previous 120 days of controlled blood sugar. The glycated-albumin test measures the amount of blood sugar that reacts with albumin, which is a protein in the plasma. Reflected by this test is only the past twenty-one (21) to thirty (30) days of controlled blood sugar. More recent sugar levels could also be monitored. The drawback to this test as opposed to the A1C test was that it brought about higher blood sugar levels and glycated-albumin levels for hemodialysis patients compared to those patients without kidney failure. The difference stems from the medications that hemodialysis patients receive. These medications stimulate the production of the red blood cells, which is what the A1C test depends on.

However, it has not been proven how effective the glycated-albumin test is for patients that have kidney failure, but are not yet on dialysis. Nor has the effectiveness been proven for those patients on peritoneal dialysis.

About the Author:

Julia Hanf author of the book How To Play the Diabetes Diet Game and Win Through a real life crisis Julia figured out how to live diabetes free. Visit www.yourdiabetescure.com and learn more about your solution for diabetes.