Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Fasting or Non-Fasting A1C

Q: My husband had a fasting a1c test and today she said the test wasnt run as a fasting A1C, it was non fasting listed in the medical chart. Could the 7.5 be different if they were done for nonfasting, compare to fasting 14 hours?

thank you
A: The A1C test can be drawn fasting or nonfasting. It is an average of all the glucose readings over the past 3 months--maybe a little more heavily weighted by the blood sugar readings over the past few weeks, but not too much. The readings don't change quickly, like our glucose readings using our meters.

Fasting or not, and given the variations in laboratory results, take the reading for what it is---a general idea of how the blood glucose control has been going. If it's causing worries, have the test repeated. Talk to your diabetes educator and your doctor to see if they think it would be best to tighten the diabetes control a little.

Take care, ginny