I was just told that 105 is “diabetic”, did not even use the term pre-diabetic, although I know applying any Type II classification at all is only because the classifications and definitions changed to include more patients. I have had readings around 105 for years and never before was it an issue. I personally don’t believe that 105 is of any medical significance.
Alright. I wrote a rant on this topic and decided not to bother posting it. But now I have to. :-)
One thing you have to realize is that these machines are not perfect. There can be as much as a 5% variation between readings from the exact same drop of blood and that is considered acceptable by the industry’s standard. My son’s a diabetic and we played with his meters. Here are some of the fun things we found.
- using the same draw of blood with three different calibrated machines (all the same brand) we saw readings across a 60 point range.
- using another blood sample, with the same machine, we ran three consecutive tests and had a 15 point variation.
- good hand washing is vital for testing because the machine will pick up any sugar that might be on your hands. We’re talking about *tiny* amounts. So if you handle a sugar packet or touch a drop of dried juice, wipe off your finger carelessly with a wipe and still have the most minute trace of sugar on your hand, it can throw off the results by a few points.
An accuracy of 5% is considered acceptable. But if you’re talking about a fasting BG of 102-105, you’re still within the accuracy range for the machine. (If you do a Google search about machine accuracy, you’ll find people who report inaccurate readings of up to 100 points. This can be a fatal error.)
Another thing to consider is that “normal” ranges for many diseases are constantly being reevaluated. Until 1998 110 for a fasting BG used to be considered the upper limit and a fasting BG above 140 was considered diabetic. They lowered it to 126. (I honestly believe that they did this to get more people on medication and using the equipment rather to aid public health. They did the same thing with cholesterol numbers.)
I was looking at charts showing the ‘diabetes epidemic’ for the US and it is telling that the numbers shot up after 1998. Diabetes used to be like every other disease. You went to the dr when you got sick. Now they screen most people regularly. People who feel perfectly fine are being diagnosed and medicated based on what could be nothing more than a quirk in the reading. So do we really have an increase of disease or of diagnosis?
So a fasting BG of 104 is nothing to get upset about. Personally, I’d be more interested if the numbers shot up with the glucose tolerance test. If one has *repeatedly* elevated fasting BG’s and responds poorly to the glucose challenge, then they’ve got a problem that has to be dealt with.
Finally, there are many factors that can affect the BG’s of a non-diabetic:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/466221-blood-sugar-levels-in-non-diabetics/
“Many factors may temporarily increase an individual’s blood sugar level, even in non-diabetics. These factors include trauma, stroke, heart attack, surgery and drugs such as corticosteroids, dextrose, epinephrine, diuretics, estrogen, aspirin and certain antidepressants. On the other hand, certain medications may reduce blood sugar including acetaminophen, alcohol, anabolic steroids, monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) and oral diabetic medications.”
Diseases and other factors that can cause elevated hyperglycemia include: hyperthyroidism, acromegaly, cushings, shock, stress (physical or emotional), and liver disease.
So it greatly oversimplifies the situation to say, “Your one fasting reading of 104 makes you a pre-diabetic.”
Why is this important? Because (until right now) this diagnosis greatly effected health insurance rates and it definitely has an impact on life insurance policies. Because we now have a gov’t that isn’t exactly friendly to people who’ve been diagnosed with a chronic illness. Because gov’t wonks use things like the “diabetes epidemic” to justify their nanny-state regulations and laws. Because every medication has negative side effects and it just MIGHT be a bad idea to put a healthy person on a drug that may cause harm in the long run. (And yes, there are drs who medicate pre-diabetics. Sometimes, this can be a good thing, but not if it’s based on one reading.)
And just *maybe* it might be a jerk thing to do to scare a healthy person into thinking that they have a life-threatening disease when they may have just had a really crappy nights sleep. (Yes, one night of bad sleep can raise your BG.)
http://news.leiden.edu/news/lack-of-sleep-affects-blood-sugar-level.html