Title : A Better Diabetes Test?
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A Better Diabetes Test?
WEDNESDAY, Oct. 5, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Industry-funded researchers say they've designed a way to improve accuracy of any standard diabetes test.
"We think our approach will enable many patients in addition to their doctors to perform a better job controlling sugar levels and reduce the long-term perils of heart attack, stroke, blindness and kidney failure" linked to diabetes, said Dr. John Higgins, associate professor of systems biology at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
At concern is the HbA1c test, often known as the A1c test, currently in use to diagnose diabetes. It also identifies those with prediabetes and offers insight into how well blood glucose is controlled spanning a three-month period the type of monitoring their disease.
The A1c test "measures simply how much sugar someone's blood cells have consumed since the time cellular structure were produced," Higgins said.
"Before quality was available, patients and clinicians only knew what ones current glucose levels level was. But effective treatments for diabetes is determined by knowing what the blood glucose level has been considering that the previous checkup," Higgins explained. "The HbA1c test provided the 1st available estimate of the patient's blood glucose level in the last several weeks."
For countless diabetics worldwide, the A1c test forms the premise of their treatment. In the United States alone, greater than 29 million Americans have diabetes, in accordance with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The test is usually inaccurate, however. How much that matters can be debate.
Higgins said the errors are significant. But another specialist, Dr. Joel Zonszein, said quality is rarely inaccurate and "is a fantastic test for that great majority" of patients.
"Patients with diabetes could be properly monitored and given the tools we've got," said Zonszein, director of clinical diabetes at Albert Einstein College of Medicine's University Hospital in New York City.
"In my experience, the main dilemma is that individuals with diabetes don't often check their A1c values," said Zonszein, who wasn't associated with the new research.
For the modern study, Higgins with his fantastic colleagues used a high level mathematical formula, or algorithm, to analyze glucose levels through the HbA1c test.
This enabled the scientists to be the cause of variations from the age of blood cells among folks, Higgins said. Hemoglobin in red blood cells accumulates sugar after some time, and is particularly a major basis for differences in test results, he was quoted saying.
In in excess of 200 patients included within the study, Higgins said the modern approach reduced significant errors from about one out of three to about one out of 10. These were errors just right to affect treatment decisions, he was quoted saying.
Since those with diabetes frequently get A1c tests every 90 days, Higgins said the brand new approach could boost their monitoring and treatment.
Higgins declined to estimate the amount of it would cost to add the brand new calculations to existing tests. But he anticipates the additional expense could well be less than the money necessary for the A1c test itself. And in defense of the higher pricing, he added, "diabetes becomes very costly if blood sugar are not well-controlled."
The study was funded from the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Abbott Diagnostics, an organization that develops laboratory lab tests. The study authors, including Higgins, are listed as inventors using a patent application connected to the findings.
What's next?
Higgins said the study are looking for partnerships that could allow labs to utilize the algorithm to further improve HbA1c testing.
Zonszein said the analysis findings appear valid, although algorithm "has not been challenged and/or weighed against other possible mathematical models."
For now, however, "this is research, which is not a practical model that should be implemented," he stated.
The study appears from the Oct. 5 issue of Science Translational Medicine.
More information
For more about glucose levels tests, start to see the American Diabetes Association.
NEW Diabetes Discovery
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