07-23-2009, 06:13 PM
Mike Sellers wrote:
[quote=Robert M]He had a healthful meal of burgers, fries, a shake and a bag of pork rinds as a snack a few hours before his cholesterol test. He forgot about the test and wasn't reminded of it until after he'd stuffed himself. His doctor told him not to take the blood test because his "meal" will have skewed the results entirely.
I wonder if fasting before bloodwork actually skews the results moreso than not fasting. Seems to me, if his regular diet consisted of this type of food, then the results would have been more accurate than if he had fasted before the test.
Don't worry, they can tell what you've been doing for the past three months:
"The HbA1c test, usually called just an "A1c" test, is a long term measure of diabetic control. Over the course of time, glucose and blood fats combine to "coat" some of the red blood cells (hemoglobin) ... sort of like icing a cake. Since red blood cells are being destroyed and re-manufactured every day, by measuring the percentage of them that have this "coating," we can get an idea of how well the person has kept their blood sugar under control long-term. The new cells won't have this coating for a while. The A1c is a measure of how good the control has been for the past 90 days."