Prevention of Diabetes and Complications

Screening of Diabetes

Blood tests are used to diagnosis diabetes and prediabetes because early in the disease type 2 diabetes may have no symptoms. All diabetes blood tests involve drawing blood at a health care provider’s office or commercial facility and sending the sample to a lab for analysis. Lab analysis of blood is needed to ensure test results are accurate. Glucose measuring devices used in a health care provider’s office, such as finger-stick devices, are not accurate enough for diagnosis but may be used as a quick indicator of high blood glucose.
Testing enables health care providers to find and treat diabetes before complications occur and to find and treat prediabetes, which can delay or prevent type 2 diabetes from developing. Diabetes is diagnosed when: symptoms are present and fasting blood test result is at or above 7.0 mmol/L or a random blood test result is at or above 11.1 mmol/L. HbA1c blood test result is ≥ 6.5% (48 mmol/mol) there have been no symptoms and two abnormal blood glucose tests (as above) on separate days.