Healthy Is a Habit

What Does My Glucose Level Tell Me?

Diabetes

A blood glucose test is a blood test that screens for diabetes by measuring the level of glucose (sugar) in a person’s blood.

To get an accurate plasma glucose level, you must have fasted (not eaten) for at least 8 hours prior to the test. When you report to the clinic or laboratory, a small sample of blood will be taken from a vein in your arm. According to the practice recommendations of the American Diabetes Association, the results of the blood test are interpreted as follows:

If your blood glucose level is 70 to 99 mg/dL you are in the normal range. If you are in the 100 to 125 mg/dL range, you are considered pre-diabetic. A reading of 126 or higher mg/dL is considered diabetes.

The development of Type-2 diabetes is a normal adaptive mechanism the body uses to ward off extreme fat accumulation when faced with the rich Western diet. The most healthful and long-lasting way to correct obesity and insulin resistance is by following a low-fat, plant-based diet.

Drug therapy has consistently failed patients with type-2 diabetes. Medications do not heal diabetes.

Several published studies demonstrate how type-2 diabetics can stop insulin and get off diabetic oral medications with a change in diet. One goal is weight loss to the point of a normal BMI (body weight). At that point the blood sugars of most patients diagnosed with type-2 diabetes will normalize, and then no further treatment with medications should be needed.

One recent study showed lowered fasting glucose levels in people who added 30 grams (1 ounce) of ground flaxseed per day to their diet.

Heart disease accounts for 70% of the deaths in diabetics. Diabetes is the number one cause of kidney failure, and cancer is more common in diabetics.

For more information about refined carbohydrates and glucose levels, read Dr. McDougall's newsletter.

For a chart of various sugars, click here.

Dementia

The New York Times reported on an observational study of patients at a large health care system in Washington State showing that higher blood glucose levels are associated with a greater risk of dementia — even among people who don’t have diabetes. The results, published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, “may have influence on the way we think about blood sugar and the brain,” said Dr. Paul Crane, the lead author and associate professor of medicine at the University of Washington.

The researchers tracked the blood glucose levels of 2,067 members of Group Health, a nonprofit HMO, for nearly seven years on average. Some patients had Type 2 diabetes when the study began, but most didn’t. None had dementia.

Over the years, as they saw doctors at Group Health, the participants received blood glucose tests. “It’s a common test in routine clinical practice,” Dr. Crane said. “We had an amazing opportunity with all this data. All the lab results since 1988 were available to us.”

The participants (average age at the start: 76) also reported to Group Health every other year for cognitive screening and, if their results were below normal, further testing and evaluation. Over the course of the study, about a quarter developed dementia of some kind, primarily Alzheimer’s disease or vascular dementia.

“We found a steadily increasing risk of dementia associated with ever-higher blood glucose levels, even in people who didn’t have diabetes,” Dr. Crane said. Of particular interest: “There’s no threshold, no place where the risk doesn’t go up any further or down any further.” The association with dementia kept climbing with higher blood sugar levels and, at the other end of the spectrum, continued to decrease with lower levels.

This held true even at glucose levels considered normal. Among those whose blood sugar averaged 115 mg/dL, the risk of dementia was 18 percent higher than among those at 100 mg/dL, just slightly lower. The effects were also pronounced among those with diabetes: patients with average glucose levels of 190 mg/dL had a 40 percent higher risk of dementia than those whose levels averaged 160 mg/dL.accounts for 70% of the deaths in diabetics.

Find Your Glucose Level

To find out your fasting glucose level you will need to check with your physician. Alternatives include a visit to an "Any Lab Test" location in your town and pay $99.

For a FREE chart that you can print off and fill in with your test results, click here.