Hemoglobin A1C Testing for Diabetes

By Trevor Shewfelt, Pharmacist at the Dauphin Clinic Pharmacy

Have you heard Trevor on the radio? Listen to 730 CKDM Tuesday Mornings at 8:35 am! We now have most of the articles published in the Parkland Shopper on our Website www.dcp.ca

The information in this article is intended as a helpful guide only. It is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional advice. If you have any questions about your medications and what is right for you see your doctor, pharmacist or other health care professional.

I was watching PBS the other day. There was a guy telling an audience he could “cure” diabetes with the right diet. Some of what he said was reasonable. He was recommending lot of fruits and vegetables and less sugar, white bread and potatoes. I think he was exaggerating saying he could “cure” diabetes, though. The part I found really interesting was that he was talking about getting your hemoglobin A1C (HbA1C) checked. The hemoglobin A1C is a three month average of your blood sugars, and it doesn’t get enough attention.

If you are diabetic, you know you have to test your blood sugar. We have lots and lots of evidence from huge studies with funny names like DCCT and UKPDS that the closer a diabetic person keeps their blood sugar to normal values the less chance they have of getting the big four problems of diabetes.

The big four problems associated with diabetes are heart disease, kidney disease, amputation, and blindness. So, if you are diabetic you should follow your diet and exercise plan, use your medications appropriately, and test your blood sugar at home. Home blood sugar testing is one of the best ways for you to see if your diabetic plan that you developed with your health care professional is keeping your blood sugar within normal limits. And if you keep your blood sugar within normal limits, you are more likely to avoid the diabetes big four.

There is another test for blood sugar that fewer diabetics know about. It is called a hemoglobin A1C or glycosylated hemoglobin test. It sort of gives an average of how your blood sugar has been doing over the last 3 months, and should be done at least once a year. Let’s talk about how it works a little more.

Red blood cells carry oxygen in your blood. Red blood cells look like doughnuts with the hole in the middle not quite all the way through. Or another way to picture them is they look like a ball that has been pinched together in the middle. What red blood cells look like is important, because of what they do. A red blood cell picks up its load of oxygen in the lungs, goes through the heart, and drops off its oxygen at a tissue. To get to its tissue, the red blood cell must bend and squeeze to get through very narrow tubes called capillaries.

Now let’s add diabetes to the mix. If you have diabetes, you have too much sugar in your blood.

The hemoglobin A1C test checks to see how many of your red blood cells are coated with sugar. If your blood sugar control over the past 3 months has been good, your hemoglobin A1C will be good. Why does the hemoglobin A1C test 3 months worth of blood sugar control? Because red blood cells live about 3 months.


As always if you have any questions or concerns about these or other products, ask your pharmacist.