I understand the basic concept that it is a (averaged??) snapshot of prior 90 days of blood glucose levels… but what is the value (% or ppm, etc.) and how is it reached?
With a diabetic, glucose levels aren’t always stable. Let’s say you ranged from 150-350 on a given day…what value is given to that “day” in the 90 day picture?
In: 40
Your blood has proteins called hemoglobin in it. They are responsible for transporting oxygen around your body. These proteins stay in your body for about 90 days before they die are are discarded.
As they run around in your blood delivering oxygen like box trucks they also get all dirty with sugar. The longer they have been in your blood, the more dirty they get. Like box trucks running around on a muddy rainy 3 months vs box trucks running around in beautiful sunny weather.
What the test does, is count how many hemoglobin in your blood are dirty with sugar. It would be like being able to count how many dirty box trucks there was, to determine how many rainy days there was.
But instead, we know how much sugar each hemoglobin collects on a regular basis as it zooms around with it’s oxygen. And we can measure how many, by percentage, of the hemoglobin have become coated with sugar (glaciated).
Then it’s just simple math.
How many proteins are coated divided by how many are collected x 100 = A1C%
And we know from research that each percentage equals an average blood sugar over 90 days.
5 = 97
6 = 126
7 = 154
8 = 183
etc
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