Diabetic Testing

What are the different types of diabetes testing

Blood glucose checking is one of the best tools to get good control and prevent long-term complications of diabetes. Frequent blood glucose testing and good record-keeping by people with diabetes give them the most accurate possible picture of their diabetes control. But how do you know about the extent occurred in your blood glucose? The answer is diabetes testing. Regular testing of diabetes allows you to know the ongoing status of the disease.

Early detection of diabetes mellitus can help you to prevent and control your diabetes and it can be done by using different types of diabetic tests. Testing your blood sugar (glucose) will help you learn how food, activity levels, stress, medicine and insulin affect your blood sugar level. So, you can stay healthy and prevent or delay diabetic complications such as blindness and kidney failure.

Frequent testing and monitoring of blood sugar levels is the number one way to manage diabetes" said Lorne Yaffe, Vice President of Marketing for American Diabetes Services.

Testing for blood-glucose levels are done in two forms—

• the short-term tests for ketones in the urine that can be done at home. You can monitor your blood glucose by using a glucose meter yourself at home that is called self-monitoring of blood glucose or "SMBG." There are more than two dozen glucose meters, monitors, test strips and systems available in the market for diabetes testing at home.
• longer-term tests for fructosamine or glycosylated serum protein and glycosylated hemoglobin, but these diabetic tests can not be performed at home. A glycosylated hemoglobin test, especially hemoglobin A1c is the most common diabetic test.

Researchers evaluate continuous, less invasive and less intrusive methods of glucose testing. A combination of self testing and HbA1c testing is important to get the information about more adequate situation of diabetic control. To get the most accurate results, be sure to follow all the instructions recommended by your healthcare provider before taking any diagnostic test.

Frequency of Testing

The ADA recommends the people with diabetes to perform type 1 diabetes test themselves at least 3-4 times a day. For type 2 diabetics, only regular testing is suggested to reduce the unwanted complications as there is no standard guideline for the number of tests. For gestational diabetics, tests should be done 2 times a day.

Types of diabetic testing

Today's technologies allow diabetic testing on an impressively wide variety of methods used to test blood sugar or glucose.

The following tests are used for diagnosis:

• A fasting plasma glucose test is done after you have gone at least 8 hours without eating to measure your blood glucose and detect diabetes or pre-diabetes.
• An oral glucose tolerance test is done after you have gone at least 8 hours without eating and then 2 hours after you are given to drink a glucose-containing beverage to measure your blood glucose level. It is used to diagnose diabetes, per-diabetes and gestational diabetes.
• A random plasma glucose test is done to check your blood glucose without regard to when you ate your last meal. This test is used to diagnose diabetes but not pre-diabetes.

These diabetic testing are followed by one or more additional different types of tests performed at specific intervals to track glucose levels over time. Some of them are:

Urine test
Urine tests are used to measure ketones but these tests are not as accurate as blood tests to diagnose diabetes.

Blood tests
Screening or diagnostic blood tests are performed to measure the low or high level of blood sugar or glucose.

The glycohemoglobin test
The glycohemoglobin test also named as glycosylated hemoglobin , and hemoglobin A1c , gives information about your average blood sugar level during the past two or three months.

The fructosamine test
Fructosamine refers the linking of blood sugar onto protein molecules in the bloodstream. Fructosamine levels show changes in diabetic control earlier than the glycohemoglobin so they might be able to detect diabetes more rapidly than glycohemoglobin.

Glycosylated Serum Proteins test
Testing the serum proteins, like hemoglobin, can give information about your glucose control over shorter periods of time than testing glycosylated hemoglobin as serum protein refers to combine with glucose to form glycosylated products.