What Are The Ideal Levels Of Blood Sugar?

What are the ideal levels of blood sugar?

A blood sugar or blood glucose chart identifies ideal blood sugar levels throughout the day, including before and after meals.
Doctors use blood sugar charts to set target goals and monitor diabetes treatment plans. Blood sugar charts also help those with diabetes assess and self-monitor blood sugar test results.
What is a blood sugar chart?
Blood sugar charts act as a reference guide for blood sugar test results. As such, blood sugar charts are important tools for diabetes management.
Most diabetes treatment plans involve keeping blood sugar levels as close to normal or target goals as possible. This requires frequent at-home and doctor-ordered testing, along with an understanding of how results compare to target levels.
To help interpret and assess blood sugar results, the charts outline normal and abnormal blood sugar levels for those with and without diabetes.
In the United States, blood sugar charts typically report sugar levels in milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL). In the United Kingdom and many other countries, blood sugar is reported in millimoles per liter (mmol/L).
A1C blood sugar recommendations are frequently included in blood sugar charts. A1C results are often described as both a percentage and an average blood sugar level in mg/dL.
An A1C test measures the average sugar levels over a 3-month period, which gives a wider insight into a person's overall management of their blood sugar levels.
Blood sugar chart guidelines
Appropriate blood sugar levels vary throughout the day and from person to person.
Blood sugars are often lowest before breakfast and in the lead Continue reading

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Diabetes Incidence and Historical Trends

Type 1 Diabetes Incidence
There are approximately 500,000 children aged under 15 with type 1 diabetes in the world (Patterson et al. 2014); in 2013 alone, 79,000 more children developed type 1 (IDF Diabetes Atlas 2013). Worldwide, the incidence of type 1 diabetes increased, on average, 3% per year between 1960 to 1996 in children under age 15 (Onkamo et al. 1999). Between 1990 and 1999, incidence increased in most continents, with a rise of 5.3% in North America, 4% in Asia, and 3.2% in Europe. This trend is especially troubling in the youngest children; for every hundred thousand children under age 5, 4% more were diagnosed every year, on average, worldwide (Diamond Project Group 2006).
In the U.S., the latest data show that the prevalence of type 1 diabetes increased by 21% in children between 2001 and 2009 (Dabelea et al. 2014), and the incidence of type 1 diabetes in non-Hispanic whites increased by 2.7% per year between 2002 and 2009 (Lawrence et al. 2014). More recent numbers show that overall, type 1 diabetes incidence in children increased by 1.8% per year between 2002 and 2012 (Mayer-Davis et al. 2017). Those numbers are from the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth study, which has study centers in 5 U.S. states. The CDC collects nation-wide data on diabetes, but does not differentiate between type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
A study of a large population of U.S. patients with commercial health insurance found that type 1 (and type 2) prevalence increased between 2002-2013 in children (Li et al. 2015). Another study of U.S. patients-- both children and adults-- with commercial Continue reading

Carbohydrate Counting & Diabetes

What is carbohydrate counting?
Carbohydrate counting, also called carb counting, is a meal planning tool for people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. Carbohydrate counting involves keeping track of the amount of carbohydrate in the foods you eat each day.
Carbohydrates are one of the main nutrients found in food and drinks. Protein and fat are the other main nutrients. Carbohydrates include sugars, starches, and fiber. Carbohydrate counting can help you control your blood glucose, also called blood sugar, levels because carbohydrates affect your blood glucose more than other nutrients.
Healthy carbohydrates, such as whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, are an important part of a healthy eating plan because they can provide both energy and nutrients, such as vitamins and minerals, and fiber. Fiber can help you prevent constipation, lower your cholesterol levels, and control your weight.
Unhealthy carbohydrates are often food and drinks with added sugars. Although unhealthy carbohydrates can also provide energy, they have little to no nutrients. More information about which carbohydrates provide nutrients for good health and which carbohydrates do not is provided in the NIDDK health topic, Diabetes Diet and Eating.
The amount of carbohydrate in foods is measured in grams. To count grams of carbohydrate in foods you eat, you’ll need to
know which foods contain carbohydrates
learn to estimate the number of grams of carbohydrate in the foods you eat
add up the number of grams of carbohydrate from each food you eat to get your total for the day
Your doctor can refer you to a die Continue reading

Type 2 Diabetes

What is type 2 diabetes
Type 2 diabetes is a chronic condition that affects your body’s use of glucose (a type of sugar you make from the carbohydrates you eat). Glucose is the fuel your cells need to do their work. You need glucose for energy. You also need insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas that helps glucose enter your cells so that it can be converted to energy.
Here’s the problem: People with type 2 diabetes (also known as diabetes mellitus) can’t properly use or store glucose, either because their cells resist it or, in some cases, they don’t make enough. Over time, glucose builds up in the bloodstream, which can lead to serious health complications unless people take steps to manage their blood sugar.
Type 2 diabetes affects more than 29 million Americans, including nearly eight million who don’t even know they have it. You may be at greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes if it runs in your family, if you are of a certain age or ethnicity, or if you are inactive or overweight.
Type 2 diabetes vs. type 1 diabetes
What’s the difference between type 1 and type 2 diabetes?
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the body does not produce insulin. The immune system destroys insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in children, teens, and young adults. People with type 1 diabetes need life-long insulin therapy.
Type 2 diabetes is much more common. In type 2 diabetes, the body doesn’t use insulin properly or, in some cases, doesn’t make enough. It’s usually diagnosed in middle-aged or older adults Continue reading

Type 2 diabetes statistics: Facts and trends

Diabetes mellitus, or diabetes, is a disease that causes high blood sugar. It occurs when there is a problem with insulin.
Insulin is a hormone that takes sugar from foods and moves it to the body's cells. If the body does not make enough insulin or does not use insulin well, the sugar from food stays in the blood and causes high blood sugar.
There are several different types of diabetes, but the most common is type 2. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) National Diabetes Report, 2014, 90 to 95 percent of people with diabetes in the United States have type 2. Just 5 percent of people have type 1.
Contents of this article:
Key facts about diabetes in the U.S.
Diabetes is at an all-time high in the U.S. The CDC's Division of Diabetes Translation states that 1 percent of the population, which is about a half of a million people, had diagnosed diabetes in 1958.
Today, nearly 10 percent of the population have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association (ADA). That's 29.1 million Americans, and more than a quarter of these people do not know they have it.
The ADA report that the number of people who have diabetes increased by 382 percent from 1988 to 2014.
The risk of developing diabetes increases with age. The CDC report that 4.1 percent of people age 20-44 have diabetes, but the number jumps to 25.9 percent for people over 65 years old.
As obesity has become more prevalent over the past few decades, so too has the rate of type 2 diabetes. An article in the Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology states that 25.6 percent of America Continue reading