The chart says her average glucose was 117 to 137 … Seriously?

Hey Reader, Dr Karl here.

The chart says her average glucose was 117 to 137
Here’s what happens when the formula meets the actual measurement.
​

There is a chart in every endocrinology office that converts your A1c
into an estimated average glucose. It is printed on lab reports.
It gets quoted back to patients as though it were a measurement.

A person with an A1c reading of 5.7 to 6.4,
that chart says your average glucose should be between 117 and 137 mg/dL.

My client’s A1c was 5.7. Her fasting glucose was 92.
She was tracking her food and watching her glucose.
Her actual numbers were nowhere near 117, let alone 137.

Either the measurement is wrong or the conversion is wrong.
The conversion is wrong, for her.
It is a population average being applied to one person,
and it was built mostly on people whose A1c behaves the way the textbook says it should.

Look at her four years of these results: Glucose 108, 104, 101, 92.
​Straight down, year over year. A1c 5.3, 5.5, 5.7, 5.7.
Straight up, then flat at the line that gets you a diagnosis.

If A1c were a glucose test those two rows would move together. They moved apart.
Not noisily apart, but consistently apart, for four straight years.

This is the part that makes me careful about reference ranges generally.
​A range is a statement about a population. ​
​Your lab result is a statement about you. ​
Those are different kinds of claim, and the second one is the only one you live in.

A conversion chart is not a measurement.
If you want to know your average glucose, measure your glucose.

​Link to the video about this story.

~Dr. Karl Goldkamp~
Keto Naturopath

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