Hello and welcome to this video about your HbA1c blood test or your diabetes
blood test and what it means. This is part of a whole series of videos if
you want to check out other organ systems just look at the playlist.
As always if your HbA1c blood test you've got back is really really high go see your doctor
but if you just want to learn a little bit more about what that blood test means stay watching
So what is the HbA1c blood test? Well it's a measure of the sugar in your blood, which is
a marker for diabetes. And so it becomes a really important thing that you can track and trend and
monitor over time especially as you start making lifestyle adjustments to help reverse diabetes if
that's come along or to stop you getting in the first place if you see your levels creeping up.
Sugar in the blood can be measured in a lot of ways and you might see people measuring it with
just a finger brick and looking at what those levels are as a snapshot. That's often done by
people who are diabetic and on insulin who need to monitor themselves very closely it's of limited
use for the average person that doesn't have that kind of condition. Now when your blood cells are
produced they start to bond sugar and they bond it irreversibly for their whole lifespan which is
about three or four months. So if you have a lot of sugar floating in your blood the new blood cells
bond it for three or four months and when we look at your HbA1c we look at your red blood cells and
we can see that they've bonded a lot of sugar which means that you've got too much sugar in
your blood. If you have the normal amount then the cells just bond the normal amount and everything
looks quite nice. HbA1c is a fantastic marker for diabetes because it's really easy to measure over
time and you can track and trend it - every three to six months you can really see the changes
of medication or lifestyle interventions which you're making. What's more we have our values so
I'll give you the English values now where we can actually start diagnosing and defining diabetes.
So if your levels are less than 42 - fantastic you probably don't have diabetes! If your levels are
42 to 47 that's something we call "pre-diabetic" and that means you are on the path to diabetes and
it's time to do something about it. If your levels are over 48 that is in diabetic territory. So if
you're not on medication we look at that kind of thing and think well maybe we can reverse that
through things like lifestyle - so increasing your exercise levels so everything from running,
cycling or even just mowing the lawn regularly and going for brisk walks every day - that can
help reduce your level. Also changing things like diet cutting out the simple sugars, cutting out
alcohol, cakes, biscuits, crisps, all that crappy junk food. If you can move to a more whole
food diet that will improve your sugar levels as well. Once your levels start going really high your
doctor might start working with you and say that you know if lifestyle isn't working they might
start introducing some medication to that as well. The idea being to bring down your sugar levels.
So if you're looking at your HbA1c on an annual basis and it looks great - fantastic! The moment
it starts to start climbing up that's the time to think to yourself 'maybe I need to do more exercise,
maybe I need to change my diet a bit.' And you can bring those levels down. HbA1c is a fantastic way
to track your sugar levels over time. If you have diabetes it's fantastic for monitoring
that condition. If you don't have diabetes it's a great way to make sure that you're not on a
path to getting it and if you are you can reverse that through some simple lifestyle modifications.
That's HbA1c I hope that makes sense and join us next time when we're going to be talking about
inflammation in the body with the CRP and the CK. Take care, thanks!
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