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Guardian 'diabetes is biopsychosocial'

Discussion in 'Other health news and research' started by AR68, Oct 24, 2018.

  1. Arnie Pye

    Arnie Pye Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    See this link : https://www.diabetes.co.uk/downloads/HbA1c-units-conversion-chart.pdf

    It depends on the units of mesurement used.

    Oh, and another thing... The results considered to be good depend on whether you have been declared to be diabetic or not.
     
  2. rvallee

    rvallee Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Le même :)

    Gendered objects are a weird feature of some languages. Lady chairs and mister sofas. And completely arbitrary so it's about as frustrating to non-native speakers as the damn feature of the English language to have multiple pronunciations of the same spelling. There's just no rule there, yet it's glaring when it's wrong. Maybe it was meant to make spies more obvious? Easy tell.
     
  3. Wonko

    Wonko Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    UK
    In that case a reading of 10.0 corresponds to an hba1c of 86, which is really very very bad, I've never had one that high since I started on meds, and on occasion mine has been too high for a BG meter to read in that period.
     
  4. Cheshire

    Cheshire Moderator Staff Member

    Messages:
    4,675
    Hba1c are expressed in percentage. It measures the proportion of haemoglobin cells that are loaded with sugar.

    The normal range is between 4 and 6%.
     
  5. Arnie Pye

    Arnie Pye Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Location:
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    I think the 10 may be fasting morning glucose. The HBA1C is a different test. But I'm not diabetic, so I'm on shaky ground here.
     
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  6. rvallee

    rvallee Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I think an intellectually honest BPS model has a place in medicine. But the current model is 99% psychosocial and pretty much 90% psychological. The bio part is added to pretend they incorporate biology but then they make no cooperation or even dialogue with the biomedical researchers.

    When the very name of an idea is deliberately misleading, it's almost guaranteed to be wrong.
     
  7. Wonko

    Wonko Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Location:
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    That is the only thing that makes sense to me, but a reading of 10 is still higher than I have most days, and I don't consider my control 'good'.

    ETA - given that chart starts at 20, giving an hba1c of 4% if this is in any way comparable to the BG test then reading it the other way an hba1c of 10 mmol/mol would indicate a BG level of around 2%, and probably have someone in a coma, so my conclusion is, as stated, that the reading of 10 doesn't refer to an hba1c result, if 10 is considered 'good'.
     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2018
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  8. alex3619

    alex3619 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Different countries use different units for their tests, its not standardised. Below 10 means something in Australia, for example.
     
  9. Invisible Woman

    Invisible Woman Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    A number of years ago when I had a young (teen) diabetic living in my house we were told to be aiming for a HBA1C of 9 or lower, but given the teens 9 was okay.

    When testing the blood sugar levels during the day we were told 10 was the ceiling and four was the floor and we should aim to keep results between those.

    Edited - that was a type 1 diabetic. I can't remember the exact figure but results 12.5 (HBA1C) indicated long term damage was being done. Obviously this has a cumulative effect so consistently keeping the HBA1C down is better in the long run.

    I was also told it was unlikely for a type 1 diabetic to have a reading of 8 (HBA1C) or lower. It wasn't impossible, but probably was only achievable by overcontrolling blood sugar levels. This means the diabetic is probably experiencing hypos.
     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2018
  10. AR68

    AR68 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Not being picky (!) but the limit, in my experience, appears to vary. Originally I was told 6 mmol/L (newly diagnosed insulin-dependent diabetic), then 7 then I was told that 8 is OK and then 7.5!

    There seems to be a bit of confusion about the upper limit.
     
  11. AndyPandy

    AndyPandy Senior Member (Voting Rights)

    Messages:
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    Location:
    Australia
    I’m a skinny type 2 diabetic for over 20 years.

    I’ve got the genes for types 1 and 2.

    Pretty sure mine is a medical condition :banghead:
     
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  12. AR68

    AR68 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Cells in the pancreas stop working, the BPS crowd own it and The Guardian prints without question. I give up.
     
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  13. Mithriel

    Mithriel Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    In the UK, the measurements for HBA1C are different but the goal is under 50 but under 60 is considered not bad for type 1 (I am 52 and they are happy with that). Blood sugar reading are good if under 7 two hours after meals, under 4 is hypoglycaemia. You are classed as diabetic if your blood glucose is over 10 after an overnight fast then a specified amount of glucose (a beer glass full of sugary water, yuck)
     
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