The American Diabetes Association published new recommendations for diabetes screening in January 2004 (Diabetes Care 2004;27, Suppl 1:S11-14). Fasting plasma glucose levels should be interpreted as summarized in the following table.
Fasting Plasma Glucose Level |
Interpretation |
<100 mg/dL |
Normal fasting glucose |
100 to 125 mg/dL |
Impaired fasting glucose |
>125 mg/dL |
Provisional diagnosis of diabetes mellitus |
Patients with impaired fasting glucose are now referred to as having "pre-diabetes" indicating a relatively high risk for development of diabetes mellitus. Impaired fasting glucose is associated with the metabolic syndrome. Medical therapy aimed at producing 5-10% loss of body weight, exercise and some pharmacologic agents may prevent or delay development of diabetes in these patients. Individuals with impaired fasting glucose may have normal or near-normal HbA1c levels. They often manifest hyperglycemia only when challenged with the oral glucose load used in the oral glucose tolerance test.
Fasting is defined as no consumption of food or beverage other than water for at least 8 hours before testing. Specimen requirement is one grey top (potassium oxalate, sodium fluoride) tube of blood.
For more information, see Diabetes Mellitus, Recommendations for Diagnosis.
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