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Researchers develop more accurate measurement of average glucose
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A newly developed model combines advanced math with the HbA1c test to better measure average glucose levels, according to a press release from Harvard Medical School.
“What we currently deem the gold standard for estimating average blood glucose is nowhere as precise as it should be,” John Higgins, associate professor of systems biology at Harvard Medical School and a clinical pathologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, said in the release. “Our study not only pinpoints the root of the inaccuracy, but also offers a way to get around it.”
Researchers found that the age of each patient’s red blood cells affected the accuracy of the standard HbA1c measurement. Of the 200 patients in a cohort, about one-third were found to have inaccurate HbA1c measurements.
In the new test, researchers took the directly measured glucose levels and adjusted them with a formula that accounted for the age of the person’s red blood cells. Researchers found that this test had a 1 in 10 error rate.
By using this formula, average glucose rates are more accurate than the current standard test, according to the study.
Disclosure: Higgins reports no relevant financial disclosures.