Transcript of
Diabetes blood test
People with diabetes have a high blood glucose which can make you very thirsty
or pass a lot of urine or lose weight or get very tired.
Over many years it can also lead to complications,
such as kidney damage or eye damage.
We know that lowering blood glucose can reduce the risk of these complications.
The various treatments for lowering blood glucose include healthy eating,
keeping your weight the right amount for your height, exercising regularly
and often taking tablets and/or insulin injections.
If you're going to take this treatment, you need to know if it's working
and there are various ways of checking on this.
Glucose is a sugar and, like other sugars, it's sticky
and it sticks to the haemoglobin in your blood.
This produces something called haemoglobin, A1c.
HbA1c, for short.
And studies have shown over many years
that lowering the HbA1c reduces the risk of diabetic tissue damage,
reduces the risk of kidney damage, for example.
People with diabetes have a higher blood glucose than normal.
Treatment of diabetes aims to reduce this
towards the level that people without diabetes have
in a way that's safe and appropriate for them.
We measure this, in the long term, with HbA1c,
which is a blood test that your doctor does.
The HbA1c looks at how high your blood glucose has been
over the past few months,
so it gives us a longer-term view, an overview, if you like,
rather than instant reading.
At present, HbA1c is reported as a percentage of the total haemoglobin,
so, for example, 6.5%,
in the new units, that's going to be 48mmol/mol.
But the results will be reported with old and new units on the same form.
This change is being introduced
so that different laboratories can compare the results more easily
and it will be an international change.
This may sound complicated, but don't worry about remembering new numbers.
because results will be reported side by side for the next two years.
There's no need to worry about this. It's not going to change your treatment.
