Do you remember the day you were diagnosed with diabetes? Which criteria made you a member of the “diabetic” group and you need to look at your life from a new perspective and manage your life with new requirements? Now, let’s study and consolidate the “diagnostic criteria of diabetes”.
Point 1: Diabetes Diagnostic Criteria in China
The common diagnostic criteria and classification of diabetes are the World Health Organization (WHO, 1999) criteria and the American Diabetes Association (ADA, 2003) criteria. The WHO (1999) criteria are used in our diabetes prevention and control guidelines (2013 edition).
Diagnostic criteria for diabetes mellitus
Point 2: Detailed description of the diagnostic criteria for diabetes mellitus
Four items and four values
Fasting plasma glucose concentration ≥7mmol/L
or
2-hour plasma glucose concentration ≥11.1mmol/L during oral glucose tolerance test
or
Random venous plasma glucose concentration ≥ 11.1 mmol/L
or
Glycosylated hemoglobin ≥ 6.5% (ADA criteria add this item)
Difference in presence or absence of symptoms
Key differences.
Diagnosis is made with symptoms + 1 abnormal blood glucose.
Asymptomatic (e.g. detected by physical examination), 2 times are required, taking care to exclude test errors.
Patients with typical diabetic symptoms or the presence of acute complications of diabetes can be diagnosed with 1 test.
For patients without symptoms, 2 tests are required to exclude test errors. The same items can be tested at different times, or different items can be tested twice to meet the diagnostic criteria as the basis for diagnosis.
Exclusion of stressful conditions
In acute infection, trauma or other stressful situations, a temporary increase in blood glucose may occur (in these states, the level of many hormones that elevate blood glucose in the body increases), but if there is no clear history of diabetes, the blood glucose value at this time cannot be used to diagnose diabetes in terms of clinical diagnosis.
Point 3: Several important concepts
What is fasting: no calorie intake (energy) for more than 8 hours, usually patients do not eat after 8 pm, and venous blood is drawn in the morning on an empty stomach.
Random blood glucose: blood glucose concentration at any time, with or without food.
Point IV Other frequently asked questions
FAQ1: Can urine sugar be used as a diagnostic criterion?
Answer: ×
Positive urine sugar is an important clue to diagnose diabetes, while elevated blood sugar is the main basis for the diagnosis of diabetes. Many other factors can lead to positive urine sugar and make it inconsistent with the blood glucose level, which cannot be used as a basis for diagnosis.
FAQ2: Can end-of-finger blood glucose (capillary blood glucose) be used as a diagnostic criterion for diabetes mellitus?
Capillary blood glucose (commonly known as end-of-finger blood glucose) is an indicator used by diabetic patients for self-monitoring with a blood glucose meter, and is the most basic means of evaluating the level of blood glucose control.
Capillary blood glucose self-monitoring can reflect real-time blood glucose level, assess the effects of pre-meal, post-meal, life events and glucose-lowering drugs on blood glucose, and can detect hypoglycemia, which helps to formulate individualized intervention and treatment plans, and helps sugar patients to better understand their disease status, and also helps doctors to provide patients with more comprehensive and optimized plans to achieve good control of diabetes. Venous plasma glucose is the basis for the diagnosis of diabetes. When making a diagnosis of diabetes, venous plasma glucose is used as a reference.