Pre-Diabetes: Understanding The Importance Of A Serum Insulin Test
Doctor Vishakha says, if you have a family history of diabetes or you are overweight, you must not only check your blood sugar but also your serum insulin levels and your HBA1C.
Diabetes is a chronic condition. It occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively use the produced insulin. People usually get diagnosed with diabetes at a later stage, following which they have to swear by medications and whatnot. According to Doctor Vishakha, if you have a family history of diabetes or you are overweight, you must not only check your blood sugar but also “your serum insulin levels and your HBA1C.” The health expert explains that insulin is a “predictive marketer” of diabetes, meaning it tells whether you are going to be diabetic or not. The elevated insulin levels, as per Vishakha, “tells you that you have insulin resistance which could lead to diabetes in a matter of time.”
“At this stage it is relatively easy to reverse this condition and prevent complications of full blown diabetes,” she adds.
Blood sugar is a great test to know the trajectory of diabetes. However, it takes longer to control and reverse diabetes as well as its complications, in case of very high blood sugar. Your blood sugar fasting in pp (postprandial blood glucose test) may be absolutely normal, but still you can end up being diabetic. The pp testing reflects the result of the food you have eaten over the last 24 hours. Therefore, it is not a reflective number of pre-diabetes.