What are Normal Blood Glucose Levels?

What are Normal Blood Glucose Levels?

The amount of glucose (“sugar”, measured in mg/dL) in your blood changes throughout the day and night. Your levels will change depending upon when, what and how much you have eaten, and whether or not you have exercised.

Normal Blood Sugars

• A normal fasting (no food for eight hours) blood sugar level is between 70 and 99 mg/dL
• A normal blood sugar level two hours after eating is less than 140 mg/dL

Diabetes is diagnosed by any one of the following:

1. Two consecutive fasting blood glucose tests that are equal to or greater than 126 mg/dL
2. Any random blood glucose that is greater than 200 mg/dL
3. An A1c test that is equal to or greater than 6.5 percent. A1c is an easy blood test that gives a three month average of blood sugars
4. A two-hour oral glucose tolerance test with any value over 200 mg/dL

Sometimes you may have symptoms of fatigue, excessive urination or thirst, or unplanned weight loss. However, often people have no symptoms of high blood glucose and find a diabetes diagnosis surprising.

Pre-diabetes

My doctor says I have pre-diabetes. What is that?

• You are at high risk of developing diabetes. You can prevent or delay diabetes by increasing physical activity, eating healthful foods, and maintaining or losing weight
• Pre-diabetes is also called impaired fasting glucose (IFG)

Pre-diabetes is diagnosed by any one of the following:

• A fasting blood glucose in between 100-125 mg/dL
• An A1c between 5.7 - 6.4 percent
• Any value between 140 mg/dL and 199 mg/dL during a two-hour 75g oral glucose tolerance test

 
Sources: https://www.virginiamason.org/WhatareNormalBloodGlucoseLevels

How to test blood sugar

 How to test blood sugar

To test your blood sugar level, collect your blood glucose meter, a test strip and lancing device.

See how to prepare the meter and test strip, lance your finger and get a reading using the ACCU-CHEK Aviva Plus system. Watch the video.

Or follow these steps:

1. Wash and dry your hands—using warm water may help the blood flow.¹
2. Turn on the meter and prepare a test strip as outlined in your owner's booklet.
3. Choose your spot—don't check from the same finger all the time.¹
4. Follow the manufacturer's instructions to prepare the lancing device and get a drop of blood from the side of your fingertip or other approved site.²
5. Check your blood sugar by touching and holding the test strip opening to the drop until it has absorbed enough blood to begin the test.
6. View your test result and take the proper steps if your blood sugar is too high or low, based on your healthcare professionals' recommendations.
7. Discard the used lancet properly.
8. Record the results in a logbook, hold them in the meter's memory or download to a computer so you can review and analyze them later.

French entrepreneurs launch test to detect pork in food

PARIS — Two French entrepreneurs have launched a portable device to test for the presence of pork in food for use by Muslims who abide by dietary laws. With France’s five million Muslims making up about 8 per cent of the overall population, the test, similar in size to a pregnancy test, aims to help consumers detect traces of pork not just in food, but also in cosmetics or medicines.

The kit comes with a small test tube in which a food sample is mixed with warm water. A test strip is then inserted into the water which delivers its verdict after a few minutes: One line means no trace of pork; two lines means pork is present. Frenchmen Jean-Francois Julien and Algerian-born Abderrahmane Chaoui came up with the idea at university two years ago in the midst of a Europe-wide scandal over mislabelled frozen meals containing horse meat instead of beef.

An illustration picture shows a kit to test for the presence of pork in food for use by Muslims, with small test tubes in which a food sample is mixed with warm water and test strips, at the company Capital Biotech offices in Asnieres sur Seine Oct 21, 2014. Photo: Reuters

Mr Julien was already developing tests for people suffering from food intolerance or more serious allergies. “Abderrahmane tells me ‘you know, food allergies and food intolerance are very interesting of course but you should really diversify yourself in animal proteins’,” Mr Julien said. “That’s when we got the idea to develop a specific anti-body for porcine DNA.”

Their company, Capital Biotech, argues no other existing test allows the end user to analyse the content of a food product as easily and cheaply as theirs. The tests cost €6.90 (S$11.20) per unit and are 99 per cent accurate. HalalTest will be available for purchase online very soon, the founders said. Despite its name, Capital Biotech says no test can tell whether a meat dish is fully halal. As well as shunning pork, Islam dictates that animals be slaughtered according to a strict method.

Even so, Capital Biotech said it had received pre-orders for 10,000 testing kits within 24 hours of the launch on Wednesday (Oct 22). French Muslims have embraced the product. “With this test we can find out whether there really is or isn’t any pork inside,” said halal supermarket Hal’City worker Mohamed Hatmi. Mr Julien and Mr Abderrahmane, who have also launched an alcohol test, have developed several other tests which could, they believe, interest millions of food intolerance sufferers.

The first will detect cow’s milk proteins, while another will detect traces of gluten in food for people who have an intolerance to gluten or those who have developed celiac disease, said Capital Biotech co-founder Thomas Nenninger.

Sources:  REUTERS

Cited From: http://www.todayonline.com/world/europe/french-entrepreneurs-launch-test-detect-pork-food