Blood Sugar Testing

Testing a patients blood sugar level can give their doctor lots of clues as to how the body is coping with processing sugars. Usually, when we eat a meal, the pancreas will release the hormone insulin in response to the increased glucose (sugar) load in our blood. Insulin helps the body to remove the sugar from the blood stream by storing it in organs such as liver, muscle and fat. Too much sugar in the blood can be really damaging, so it’s important that the body keeps the blood sugar within a safe range.

Obesity, particularly “central” abdominal obesity, puts strain on the pancreas. The body finds it difficult to respond to the insulin released by the pancreas and the blood sugars are no longer tightly regulated. This manifests as elevated blood sugar levels.

Impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) is where blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be classified as diabetes. Impaired fasting glucose (IFG) is where blood glucose levels are elevated in the fasting state but not high enough to be classified as diabetes.

These clues can be present long before a patient officially meets the criteria for diabetes. It’s known as “prediabetes” and can be detected on blood testing.

At MedSurg Weight Loss we focus on metabolic assessments which include screening for diabetes and prediabetes. We pride ourselves on patient education and will support you to understand what this condition means for your health, and importantly, help you to treat it to avoid any long term complications related to blood sugar problems.