What is A1C in Simple Terms – Dr. Berg

What is A1C? Find out.

hey guys dr. Berg here I want to answer the question what is A1C okay now it relates to diabetes but what actually is it what does it measure okay it basically means glycated hemoglobin now that’s a fancy word for sugar-coated blood cells okay there’s protein in your blood and in sugar-coated much like a sugar-coated cereal that you would eat your blood has sugar on the cells and they’re measuring how much sugar is on there okay so it measures a three-month average of your blood sugars so it’s a it’s better than just measuring a one-shot deal because let’s for example let’s say today it’s 100 tomorrow it’s 120 next day it’s 180 then it’s 100 and you did that for three months and then you took an average of all those numbers you would have a certain amount okay so that’s what it measures so if your blood sugars average 100 the A1C would be five point one one so that’s really a target five point one one and a little bit lower because we want between 80 and 100 being your normal blood sugar or let’s say it’s 120 your blood sugars are average 120 it’s going to be five point eight a little high let’s say it’s averaging 200 eight point five nine that’s way too high I’ve seen people up to 11 or 12 or even 16 so the numbers are off the chart that means their blood is so much sugar now I want to explain you in your blood and your body depending on your size you might have a gallon to a gallon and a half of actual blood so when you see the number 100 what you’re really measuring that comes out to about one teaspoon per gallon of blood that’s how much sugar you should normally have in your blood between like 80 to 100 between a little less than one teaspoon and about one teaspoon that’s how much sugar you should have right so let’s just say you had a Coke or you had a doughnut you’re putting massive amounts of sugar in the body and that’s going to raise it it’s going to go higher and then insulin has to come in and lower it so that’s what these numbers mean is just basically how much sugar you’re putting in your body from the food that you eat and A1C is an average of three months that’s the simplicity all right I’ll see you in the next video