Doctors at the American Diabetes Association’s 69th annual conference cited numerous advantages of the A1c test over plasma glucose measurement, including greater stability, accuracy, convenience, and correlation to the risk of developing retinopathy. The American Diabetes Association (ADA), the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) recently concurred that the A1c test can be effectively used for screening, diagnosing, and monitoring diabetes.
According to Richard Kahn, Ph.D., Chief Scientific and Medical Officer of the American Diabetes Association, the A1c test can be conducted at any time of day without fasting. A1c values vary less than fasting plasma glucose (FPG) values and offer a picture of a patient’s average blood glucose level over the preceding two to three months. “The A1c level is a reliable indicator of diabetes, and can be monitored over time to gauge the effectiveness of patient treatment regiments,” Dr. Kahn said.
BioIQ’s test kits enable employees and dependents to conduct diabetes tests themselves by supplying a few drops of blood to a home test kit and dropping it in the mail for processing by a certified laboratory. Many of BioIQ’s corporate screening programs combine an A1c test with a complete cholesterol panel to simultaneously screen for diabetes and heart disease.
