You want to control your diabetes as much as possible. You wouldn't be reading this if you didn't. So you regularly check your A1C level. This is the best measurement of our blood glucose control that we have now. It tells us what percentage of our hemoglobin -- the protein in our red blood cells that carry oxygen -- has glucose sticking to it. The less GlycoMode Glucose Support that remains in our bloodstream rather than going to work in the cells that need it the better we feel now and the better our health will continue to be. Less glucose in the bloodstream over time leads to lower A1C values. Hear what life with a health condition actually looks like. Now in one app. Built for people living with chronic and rare conditions. As we are able to control our diabetes better and better, the reasonable goal is to bring our A1C levels down to normal -- the A1C level that people who don't have diabetes have.
But before we can even set that goal, we have to know what the target is. How are 'normal' A1C levels defined? The major laboratories that test our levels often say that the normal range is 4.0 to 6.0. They base that range on an old standard chemistry text, Tietz Fundamentals of Clinical Chemistry. The Diabetes Control and Complications Trial or DCCT, one of the two largest and most important studies of people with diabetes, said that 6.0 was a normal level. But the other key study, the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study or UKPDS, which compared conventional and intensive therapy in more than 5,000 newly diagnosed people with type 2 diabetes, said that 6.2 is the normal level. Those levels, while unsubstantiated, GlycoMode Glucose Support are close. But then comes along one of my heroes, Dr. Richard K. Bernstein, the author of the key text of very low-carb eating for people with diabetes, Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution. 54 of the third edition of that book.
Sign up for our bi-monthly Diabetes Newsletter. What Dr. Bernstein says is normal is so at odds with the other experts that at least a year ago I determined to find scientific proof of what a normal A1C level actually is. It turned out to be a lot more difficult to find than I ever imagined. When I learned in 1994 that I had diabetes and that my A1C level was 14.4, I was gradually able to bring it way down. Lately I have been doing everything I can think of to try to get my A1C down to normal. But in 2008 my level in nine separate A1C tests always ranged from 5.2 to 5.6. That's far from normal, according to Dr. Bernstein. My favorite Certified Diabetes Educator is also doing everything she can to get a normal A1C level. What could we be doing that is so wrong?
Each of us is thin, eats a very healthy diet, exercises a lot, takes care of our teeth and GlycoMode Official gums, which is a major source of infection. Could we have other infections or stresses that prevent us from getting our A1C levels down to "normal"? It turns out that my favorite Certified Diabetes Educator and I have normal A1C levels after all. I learned this just yesterday when I finally tracked down actual research determining what normal levels are. A friend suggested that I contact the people who run the standardization program for GlycoMode Wellness A1C testing. This organization affiliated with the University of Missouri is the NGSP. Those initials used to stand for the National Glycohemoglobin Standardization Program. But now that the NGSP is international, they changed the name. So I called Curt Rohlfing, the NGSP data manager and technical writer/research analyst at the University of Missouri. And finally hit pay dirt in my quest for learning what a normal A1C is.