a i c as in diabetic?


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I'm assuming you mean A1C. A1C is what is formed when glucose binds with hemoglobin (the part that makes it red). Red blood cells live about 3 months and then die off being replaced by new ones. When blood is drawn A1C is counted and then percentages of this number are used to estimate what the average glucose levels have been over a several month period. The higher glucose levels have been, the higher the A1C levels will be. Because glucose levels vary throughout the day this test is better used as a gauge as to how effective a treatment is working. It should not be the only factor in measuring effectiveness for several reasons. First, it's an average. You can have a normal A1C but throughout the day have a glucose levels from too high to too low, but then it averages to be normal or within range. For instance...if your blood sugar is 50 in the morning, 280 after breakfast, 60 in the afternoon, 250 after lunch, 49 before dinner and 300 before bed the average for just those numbers would be close to 165...not including the rising and falling numbers in between....just those numbers would be equilvalent to an a1c of 6.8 (although different methods are used, this is just one example). Even though the A1C is below the acceptable range of below 7, this person would be no where near controlled! Depending on who you ask, an acceptable A1C for a person with diabetes could be anywhere from 7 to the labs normal range for NON diabetic people. None in the US consider anything above 7 as acceptable. Different labs have different reference ranges for a normal A1C, meaning a person without diabetes, which would be somewhere between around 4 and 5.9.
It's a test to measure changes over time in the blood glucose levels. For more information, see the below link.


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