A1C tester


(Frank) #1

I saw a A1C tester at Wally today.
It was only 34 dollars.
I wasn’t sure if I reall need it though.
?
Also I had to buy another Blood Glucose tester because I couldn’t find my old ones.
Old as in maybe 1 year old…
I’m interested to see what my reading is tomorrow after doing this 8 days.
Normally it would be between 100-105.

They didn’t have a Ketone tester.
Maybe the Big Wally might…


(Frank) #2

Blood glucose was 94 this morning.
I was expecting lower.


#3

Good to check every once in a while, more important than a snapshot reading at any given time.


(Doug) #4

Frank, I didn’t know home A1C tests were out. That’s pretty darn cheap, but I’m usually suspicious about such things, and think it’s better to wait until they get the bugs worked out, they get cheaper, more reliable, etc.

In looking through the reviews, it does look like it may be possible to get accurate tests - some people saying they got the same or nearly the same results as through their doctors, while others say there were substantial differences. But - you only get two tests, and people have had trouble with them as they’re quite temperature sensitive; one person saying that if it got too hot during shipment or in the store or if one’s house is over 76 F or 24 C then you’ll get nothing but an error message.

The ratings boil down to 1.9 out of 4 stars. Almost all the reviews with any text to them, versus just a number of stars picked, had negative stuff.

Walmart also has a ‘professional’ test kit with 10 tests for $133, so less per test, and the overall thing looks better. 2.9 out of 4 stars, more positive reviews. Only good for 3 months, though, so would need to be doing some regular testing to make it worthwhile.

My opinion - since blood sugar tests are pretty cheap and accurate these days, I’d wait on the A1C home tests to improve/get cheaper, unless one really needs/wants to do the test at home and/or in-between doctor’s visits.


(KM) #5

I wonder how long before we’ll have a continuous monitor for glucose, ketones, maybe triglycerides and uric acid all in one. And when we do, how much cost and withholding will be incurred for that level of knowledge.

What else would you like your “CM” to measure?


(Doug) #6

These and insulin - would love to see what they’re all doing. And I guess HDL cholesterol, for comparison with triglycerides.


(Frank) #7

I bet it won’t be long.


(Frank) #8

Thanks Doug.
I’m gonna wait.
I sure thought I’d be lower then 94 this morning.

I ate earlier today.
3pm.
That will give me 19 hours before the test.
I sure hope it’s lower.


(Doug) #9

Once fasted for 5.5 days and got a 90 in the evening. I was bummed out, but whaddayagunnado? 90 is better than 120, 150, etc.


(Frank) #10

lol…
Probably won’t be long and you’ll be able to submit a drop of blood on your phone and get a full blood workup…
Phones have become way more sophisticated in my lifetime.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #11

It would probably be more accurate, in any case, to take daily glucose readings and average them.

As Bikman points out, the idea that the amount of glycation corresponds to a three month average of glucose levels relies on the notion that the average lifespan of red blood corpuscles is precisely 90 days. If they live for longer the reading will be higher, and if they live a shorter time, then the reading will be lower. Taken as a marker of metabolic health, then, a healthier person might appear sicker, and a sicker person might appear healthier, than either is in reality.

Also, my understanding is that our level of hydration can also affect HbA1C.


(Doug) #12

:grinning: Hey old boy, you have a gift for understatement. The 1960s had phones moving from rotary-dials to push-buttons, but just about zero processing power. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: Here in 2023 state-of-the-art phones have 16 billion transistors or more.

So - ‘in our lifetime’ - back when we were 9 or 10 - Apollo 11 landed on the moon. The two Apollo Guidance Computers - one in the Command Module and the other in the Lunar Lander - worked flawlessly, and we’re talking just over 16,000 transistors there. So, about one-millionth as much processing power as today’s smart phones.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #13

I remember visiting the National Aeronautical and Space Museum in D.C., where they have the Cray supercomputer used in the Apollo craft. It had almost as much processing power as the old IBM PC/AT, if I recall correctly. Now your phone can outdo it handily.


(Frank) #14

Ugh…
100 this morning.
I guess it will take some time to heal from the abuse.

Since the hip I hunted down and KILLED the carbs…
I’d have a piece of coconut cream pie, like a quarter of the pie, and some of my extremely unhealthy calorie King yogurt or a huge bowl of ice cream with butterscotch syrup…
I’m gonna fast today I think.


(Frank) #15

I need to study some of the science of this Keto blood stuff.
I’m not even sure about carbs and glucose.

Like is it low carb so the body burns calories or stored fat first?
Is it that the body will burn injested carbs first before fat?
How do calories affect this…

I need to pick up the pace in the learning part of this all…


(Frank) #16

It’s amazing.
The progress of the phones is unbelievable.
It was a big deal when they went to push button.
I remember the phone booths all had rotary for a long time.
Then the big switch.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #17

My understanding is that counting calories is not helpful for fat loss. What is required is lowering insulin. Insulin is the principal hormone that causes fat storage (one of its many jobs in the human body), so a high level of insulin keeps us fat. When we eat a lot of carbohydrate, all that glucose raises our blood sugar, which is very damaging to the body, so the pancreas secretes insulin to drive the excess glucose from the blood. It goes into muscles, which metabolise it, and gets stored as fat in our fat cells.

Lowering insulin allows fat to leave our fat cells to be metabolised, and lowering our carb intake is what allows insulin to drop. Fat has almost no effect on insulin (we do need some insulin to properly use our food, but we don’t need much at all), so it is the source of energy on a low-carb, high-fat diet.

So if we eat a lot of carbohydrate, insulin rises and causes it to be taken care of, so it won’t damage our body. Fat-burning gets halted until all the excess glucose gets taken care of and the glucose emergency is over.

The amount of food we can eat depends on what we eat. A high-carb diet keeps us hungry all the time, but a low-carb, high-fat diet lets us eat until we are satisfied, and then stop eating for quite some time before we get hungry again. If we listen to our body, we will be eating enough, but not too much, and it won’t be necessary to count calories. As Dr. Eric Westman, the head of a well-known obesity clinic at Duke University, likes to say, “Calories count, but we shouldn’t count them.”


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #18

By the way, I meant to ask, before: do they state the instrument’s accuracy on the package? I’d be curious, because that is also relevant to the usefulness of the device. Though an inaccurate device can still be helpful, if it’s at least consistent (I used to have a scale that gave my weight as being quite a bit lower than it really was, but the readings tracked reasonably from weighing to weighing, so I could still use it).

I know that home glucose monitors often are only accurate to within 15 or 20 percent, which means that a reading of 100 could reflect an actual blood sugar between 80 and 120 (20% accuracy), or 85-115 (15%). If the home HbA1C meter is similarly accurate, it may not pay to get too worked up about readings.


(Doug) #19

Yeah. Years for sure, in my case, a time made even longer by my less-than-perfect adherence to the plan. It all takes patience, and what we do needs to be sustainable for us.


(Frank) #20

Thanks for the help Paul…
It kinda makes sense.
Is insulin released when we eat things with zero carbs?
Or will it still release if there are calories?
Are calories what spark a response from insulin?
Is glucose, calories?
lol
Damn Frank, pipe down…lol