Don’t forget to test for insulin! Often, doctors will only test fasting glucose levels to see if a person has pre-diabetes or diabetes, ignoring insulin. Which is a vital hormone that helps to keep blood sugar levels in the healthy range. However, when the body is struggling to do this, in the early days, glucose levels may still be in the normal range but this is all thanks to insulin.

What blood tests to get to test for pre-diabetes & diabetes

Fasting glucose levels tell us what range your blood glucose levels are when you haven’t eaten in around 8 hours and is done first thing in the morning on an empty stomach.

More up to date doctors may run a fasting HbA1C test also or sometimes in place of just the fasting glucose test. The HbA1C test tells us your average fasting glucose levels over a 2-3 month period.

But both of these tests whilst useful may actually miss detecting pre-diabetes or diabetes due to not testing insulin levels also.

Insulin levels are so important because insulin is needed to keep blood glucose in the healthy range and if that starts to go steadily higher and higher (out of the healthy range) the body then ramps up insulin production to keep blood glucose within the healthy range.

So a full blood sugar testing panel should include:

  • fasting insulin
  • HbA1C
  • fasting glucose

Testing for insulin helps to see the true health of your blood sugar

Insulin is the key, after all, that lets blood glucose into the “lock” of the cells and then this process is what gives us energy.

When insulin is higher than it should be, this means the body is struggling to keep blood sugar in a healthy range – so the higher insulin levels actually indicate your body is struggling to keep blood sugar levels within the healthy normal range.

If you then have the above scenario it usually means you may have insulin resistance and if this is not detected early enough, it can turn into pre-diabetes, then turning into diabetes type 2 as time goes on.

Always include insulin when checking blood sugar levels

So, when chatting to your doctor to check your blood sugar levels to see if you have pre-diabetes or diabetes, be sure to chat with your doctor about the importance of testing insulin at the same time as testing glucose to get a true picture of your overall blood sugar levels.