Am I Diabetic? - fasting sugar 122, PP level of 103 after eating rice and orange juice

by Chandra
(Pune)

QUESTION: I had my complete body checkup two days back. My fasting Sugar level is 122 mg/dl and the PP level after two hours of breakfast (steamed rice food and orange juice) the level is 103 mg/dl.The doctor says its a pre diabetes stage and advised me for HbA1C test.

**My question is why my fasting level is high when compared to PP level a total diff of around 20 mg/dl**.

six month back my fasting was 117 mg/dl and PP 132 mg/dl but Doc didn't advised me anything and said everything is normal. My Dad Has diabetes.


ANSWER: Hi Chandra,

It is very good that you are making blood glucose test every six months and every responsible person has to do this.

Regarding your results, you have to know that it all depends on several things factors:

1. First, a normal blood glucose level is considered between 64.8 and 104.4mg/dL, and a lot of hormones are taking a part in the regulation of this blood glucose concentration. Because of this slight elevation of the blood glucose concentration may appear when the secretion of certain hormones is elevated.

Pay attention that some hormones like - glucagon, adrenalin and others are elevating the blood glucose concentration and only one hormone – insulin, is reducing it.

Next, when you are waking up, the secretion of glucagon and adrenalin is increased, which is causing slight blood glucose elevation, like in your case 122mg/dl. Remember that this value can vary from one day to another.

In case a person is a pre-diabetic, his/her fasting blood glucose has to be 129 mg/dl or higher.

2.Second thing is that the blood glucose concentration depends on your diet. For example, you may have normal insulin secretion, but when you are eating a lot of carbs, your blood glucose concentration is going to be elevated.

Therefore, if you eat a large amount of carbs during dinner, that could explain your fasting blood glucose elevation.

You have to know, that when you are having a dinner your body is not able to metabolize and use all the glucose, which you are taking with your meals.

Other important thing is that when you are asleep, the metabolic processes in your body are slow and they can’t use all the glucose acquired during dinner. This is causing elevation of the blood glucose elevation in the morning.

3. The other thing, which is confirming the fact that you are not pre-diabetic, is that the postprandial blood glucose of yours is 103mg/dl. If you were pre-diabetic your blood glucose 2 hours after having a meal has to be a lot higher.

This blood glucose concentration is explained with the fact that your organism had enough time of 2 hours to handle with the glucose acquired with the food.

Another very important thing to be mentioned here is that rice contains a lot of sugar and no matter the large concentration of glucose your organism is able to handle it and to reduce the blood glucose in two hours.