What are the steps for diagnosing Type 2 Diabetes?

The steps for diagnosing Type 2 Diabetes are starting with a Fasting Blood Sugar.

You can do an oral glucose tolerance test, which is drinking a bunch of really refined sugar, which is what pushes you towards Type 2 Diabetes, that’s one of the ways they do it. They actually do that for gestational diabetes as well. Personally, I prefer to do:

• Hemoglobin A1C
  • The A1C test measures your average blood glucose for the past 2 to 3 months. The advantages of this test is that you don’t have to fast or drink anything.
• Fructosamine Test
  • The level of fructosamine in the blood is a reflection of glucose levels over the previous 2-3 weeks. Frductosamine may be considered a substitute in situations where AIC cannot be reliably measured due to rapid changes in diabetic treatment, diabetic pregnancy, shortened RBC life span, abnormal forms of hemoglobin and others.
• and a Glucose (Serum) Test,
  • Also known as the Fasting Blood Test, this test will determine if you blood glucose is within a healthy range and is the most common test to diagnose hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia. It is reccommended  to fast for 10–12 hours before the test to ensure accuracy.

We perform these tests to look at how the patient’s body is dealing with their blood sugar, because if it’s high, it’s going to create an entire host of issues.