 Hello everyone welcome to another episode of sugar MD the ultimate diabetes channel today We are going to talk about how diabetes is defined or how do you diagnose diabetes? I am dr. Ahmet Ergin. I'm an endocrinologist practicing in Florida and New York. Let's get started So guys we have had a lot of videos in this channel I believe we have around close to 150 videos right now about diabetes It is typically scattered is based on what you're asking But I am going to go back to basics a little bit and remind you a few things and today is The most basic thing. How do we even diagnose diabetes because we have a lot of viewers who are pre-diabetic Or insulin resistant and they want to know If they're already diabetic right they asked me hey Do I have diabetes have this number that number Listen carefully I am going to give you the metric numbers the milligram per deciliter Etc and then millimole per liter for European watchers. So we'll go over the numbers today today is the numbers game Let's get started now before we jump into that. I want to categorize how we diagnose it So we typically have two out of three Criteria met to diagnose diabetes and number one is fasting glucose Number two is A1c and number three the two hour glucose tolerance test So let's talk about the fasting glucose typically fasting glucose is less than a hundred is acceptable We call it normal if it is a hundred milligram per deciliter or in millimole. I is 5.5 millimole per liter. I don't use millimoles. I have to look that up. I'm sorry. So that is normal So if you go between hundred and hundred and twenty five in your fasting blood sugars And that's milligram per deciliter and that would be five point five to six point nine Millimole per liter for European watchers again And in that case you are considered pre-diabetic based on the fasting glucose numbers again Remember just one criteria Doesn't always diagnose you for pre-diabetes or diabetes you have to have two out of three So fasting glucose is one of the criteria we look at and we look at two hour glucose tolerance as well as A1c So if it is more than 125, which is like 126 or above Then you are fitting one of the criteria to be diagnosed for diabetes So that's fasting glucose now. Let's look at the A1c I don't think there is different values for A1c for European watchers as far as I'm concerned So but A1c is typically like most of you know if the A1c is Less than 5.7 that's considered normal and these are in percentages And I think the obviously the reason there is really no milligram per deciliter Etc because it's represented in percentages. So less than 5.7 percent is Normal considered normal. I mean you can argue about that, but you know, this is the criteria I'm just talking about here and 5.7 to 6.4 is considered pre-diabetic for the A1c criteria and More than 6.5 and above is considered diabetes. Now that's the A1c Now when you look at the two hour glucose tolerance test If you don't know what it is you basically get a fasting glucose down and then you drink a Sugary drink and two hours later. We check your blood sugar again Now so if your blood sugar is less than 140 at two hour mark, which is 7.7 millimole or below then you're considered normal. If it is 140 to 200 That's considered pre-diabetic and the millimole for that is 7.7 to 11 And if you are more than 200 milligram per deciliter or 11.1 millimole per liter then you are considered Diabetic. So One another thing that we don't necessarily put in this criteria system because it is basically Epizotic, which means that if anywhere for any reason you had blood drawn or you use somebody else's meter And you just check your blood sugar and you found that it's more than 200 Well, that is very suspicious Of course if you had a blood work done and your blood sugar is like You know more than 200 and you have symptoms. You don't really need any other test So as if you have symptoms of diabetes, which we have a video about you can look into that video But the most common symptoms are Polyurea, which is excessive urination Polydipsia, which is excessive thirst Losing weight if you have Especially these three most common and severe symptoms along with blood sugar more than 200 Then we don't really need a 1c test. We don't need any other test I can comfortably tell you that you are diabetic and uncontrolled diabetic because you are symptomatic also remember when you are symptomatic there's also a Significant and important sign that you are insulin deficient if not permanently at least temporarily You are insulin deficient because if you have insulin in your system, you cannot really lose weight So with the high blood sugar, I mean So if your blood sugars are high and you're losing weight that is because You have very minimal insulin left most top-2 diabetics cannot lose weight because their insulin resistance They have a lot of insulin Etc, which we talked in other videos. I don't want to go into too much detail But the bottom line is if your doctor tells you hey, I have to put you on insulin for a short time To just get the sugar under control don't panic that doesn't mean that you are going to be on insulin permanently again I am an avid supporter of allistic approach Integrative approach or at least non insulin medications before we go jump on the insulin So again, you have a lot of options that you can use Starting with your diet and exercise the best you can but insulin is always the last resort unless You are losing weight. You are excessively urinating You are drinking water as a view cannot wrench your thirst Then you definitely need insulin at least for a short time. So guys if you like this video, please give a thumbs up Please share with your family members. They may find this beneficial. All right guys talk to you later All right, thank you for watching and I want you to be more informed and more educated So to do that go ahead and watch this next video right here