Articles

What is the normal range for blood sugar?

by Disease Fix Largest Disease Information Center
Your body breaks down the food you eat into glucose. Blood then carries glucose (blood sugar) to all of the body's cells to use it for providing energy to body cells. 

Diabetes is a chronic disease in which your blood sugar levels are too high. Gradually, too much of glucose levels in the blood starts causing serious problems. Even if you don't have diabetes, you may sometimes experience problems with blood sugar that is either too low or too high from the average and ideal sugar levels.

What is the normal range for blood sugar?
One of the main aims of treating diabetes is to bring blood sugar levels as close to normal as possible. Have you ever wondered what is a normal blood sugar level? What is the ideal blood sugar level? How can you achieve normal blood sugar (also called blood glucose)?

When someone talks about blood sugar, they mean blood glucose. The two terms mean the same thing. Blood sugar is normally measured in milligrams of glucose per deciliter of blood (mg/dl) in the United States. A milligram is about 0.00018 of a teaspoon. A deciliter is about 3 1/3 ounces.

In some countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom, blood sugar is reported in millimoles/liter (mmol/L). If someone says that their fasting blood glucose was 7, you can multiply that by 18 and get the U.S. glucose level equivalent of 126 mg/dl.

Normal glucose numbers or ideal glucose levels vary throughout the day. For example for a person without diabetes, a fasting blood sugar in the morning after waking up should be under 100 mg/dl. Before-meal it should be between 70 and 99 mg/dl. Postprandial sugars are taken one-two hours after meals and should be less than 140 mg/dl.

If you have diabetes, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends keeping your blood sugar levels before meals from 80–130 mg/dl and your levels 1–2 hours after meals under 180. 

There is also a long-term blood sugar test called a hemoglobin A1c, HbA1c, or A1C. This test gives your average blood sugar reading over the last 2–3 months. HbA1c is expressed as a percentage. But you can convert this into other forms of representation with simple formula or use a blood sugar chart for conversion. Blood sugar chart also called diabetic chart or blood glucose chart are powerful tools to track your glucose levels and to understand how much they shoot off the average sugar levels. 

The normal A1C value for a person without diabetes is below 5.7%. The objective for a person with diabetes is recommended by the ADA to be lower than 7.0% if you want good control.

Whole it is good to manage diabetes and control your sugar levels, sometimes, due to over controlling and being careful blood sugar levels may come down below the average significantly. 

Low blood sugars are also a potential problem and cause problems. If you take insulin or a sulfonylurea or any other drug, there is a risk of your blood sugar going too low. Low blood sugar can cause dizziness, confusion, weakness, or fainting.


Sponsor Ads


About Disease Fix Junior   Largest Disease Information Center

3 connections, 0 recommendations, 15 honor points.
Joined APSense since, June 12th, 2017, From New Delhi, India.

Created on May 21st 2018 06:47. Viewed 501 times.

Comments

No comment, be the first to comment.
Please sign in before you comment.