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What Are Hb A1c Numbers Like 40 Or 80

Daniel 2

Newbie
Messages
4
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Insulin
I'm used to numbers like 4.9 etc? What are numbers like 40 and 80. Haven't been able to find answwers online.

Thanks
DB in America
 
Hi Daniel. As this is a U.K. site most people will quote the mmol/mol numbers (ie 40 and 80 as you say) as the U.K. switched to this unit several years ago. The USA. still use the percentage unit. I see @sally and james has already posted a useful converter.
 
In the orginal big diabetic study (DCCT) the measure of how much glucose had become 'stuck' to haemoglobin was detemined by the fraction of the sample that came off the croamatograph.

The third column after plain haemoglobin was the glycated one - hence the 'c' .

The measurment is clearly tied to the method of measurement, ie the gas chromatograph, if you use another method of analysis to reach make a suitable comparison you have estimate what a similar sample would have produced on the original equipment.

Intead of estimating what a chromatograph would give - the IFCC value is mmol/mol i.e. an absolute value of the proportion ( effectively a tenth of a percent). This is effectively the difference between volume and weight.
( if you have a barrel of apples how much have maggots vs how many ).

As an analogy sphygmomanometers ( blood pressure meters ) used to actually have columns of mercury the height of which was used to indicate your blood pressure. There is a standard SI unit for pressure the Pascal - Pa expressed as Newtons per square metre. In terms of blood pressure - everyone thinks in terms of mm Hg.
 
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