You Ask, I Answer: Blood Sugar Levels

One of my family members is a Registered Nurse.

She was over at the house today and took my blood sugar -- my number came out to 128.

Is this high?

-- Greg (last name withheld)
Los Angeles, CA

It depends.

Upon asking Greg for clarification, he mentioned that approximately half an hour prior to this "exam" he had eaten a Fruit Roll Up.

Bingo!

When determining blood sugar levels, it is important to make a distinction if this is a fasting or post-prandial ("after a meal") value.

If someone's fasting (for testing purposes, this is considered at least 8 hours of no food or drink other than water) blood glucose is 128, there is certainly cause for concern.

However, if that is the value 30 minutes after essentially eating pure sugar, it isn't worth worrying about.

If anything, the fact that your blood sugar was 128 so soon after eating that Fruit Roll Up is a good sign. If you had diabetes, that figure would probably be above 200!

For future reference:

Your fasting blood glucose should be lower than 100. Values between 100 and 125 tend to indicate "pre diabetes."

If your blood glucose is taken randomly, you are in good shape if you are below 140. Anything above 200 is problematic, and values between 140 and 200 in this case also point to "pre diabetes."

Since pre-diabetes poses negative health consequences to cardiac health -- and is clearly a precursor for Type 2 diabetes -- many doctors now start aggressively treating it.