Anybody notice the difference between blood sugar & blood pressure norms for British vs US standards?
One would think the standards would be the same worldwide. In the UK my BS numbers would be considered normal, yet here in US my Dr says I’m pre-diabetic.
Go figure.
“Normal” and lab reference ranges shown on test results are based more on population figures, less on scientific thresholds for a medical condition.
When one lives among the sicker, one appears to be healthier. What’s within the normal range in either country is nothing to be proud of.
The US and UK have Diabetes at the same 6.5, the different is you’re prediabetic in the US at 5.7, where it’s 6 in the UK, that’s an ignorable difference
The UK has government healthcare, and like most places that do, they ignore problems longer, because that’s directly their piggy bank paying for it.
In the US a Thyroid starts being treated if a TSH hits 5, many times lower around 4, in the UK they wait until it hits 10 before they do anything. Keep in mind an optimal functional level is in the 2’s.
They do the same for men that need TRT, ignore it until it goes from bad to dumpster fire before they’ll do anything. Being in the US, you already know how bad Canada is and how many of them pour over the borders into Urgent Cares to pay cash for things they either can’t get at all, or have to wait a year for.
That said, lab reference ranges are nothing more than a bell curve of the tested population, they’re not a treatment range, and were never meant to be. The more screwed up people get tested, the range will shift in that direction.
When I started TRT about 12yrs ago the high end of the lab range was like 1650, now for Quest it’s 1100, and LabCorp is 880! That’s HALF in a little over a decade! People don’t change that fast, but they quacks treat based on that. Same thing is happening with diabetes, the higher peoples A1C’s get (also not a great marker for diagnosing people), the more “normal” higher numbers become. Functional doc’s and DO’s ignore that, mainstream MDs tell you that you’re fine and “in range”.
I feel like a complete dolt this morning … Is this really true? If so, it explains an enormous number of things that are going wrong with modern health interventions.
Don’t feel bad, literally DOCTORS don’t know that! The reference ranges were set up that way as a way to tracking changes in populations over a period of time, I have no clue at what point doctors started treating them as good/bad thing or a range to aim for.
Like in most cases, the DO’s and the Functional MD’s basically ignore them and go by their own ranges, while the mainstream MD’s do…whatever it is they do.