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What Blood Sugar Level is Advanced Diabetes?

Patients with diabetes have elevated blood sugar levels. This means patients cannot effectively convert glucose (found in food) to energy. When diabetes is diagnosed, a patient's blood sugar levels are measured to determine whether the levels fall into the proper range. If the levels are consistently too high, a patient might have diabetes.

  1. Diabetes Types

    • Several different types of diabetes exist, including type 1, type 2, gestational and pre-diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is typically diagnosed in young people and occurs when a patient's body is no longer able to produce insulin necessary for the body to use glucose. This type of diabetes also is known as insulin-dependent diabetes, meaning patients will always require insulin injections to maintain blood sugar levels.

      Type 2 diabetes chiefly affects adults and often begins with symptoms of insulin resistance, which occurs when the body is not able to use insulin properly. In advanced cases, insulin injections are necessary, but some patients can control their diabetes through diet and exercise.

      While these are the two chief forms of diabetes, other forms include gestational diabetes, which occurs in pregnant women. An additional form is pre-diabetes, in which patients have higher glucose levels than normal, yet are high enough to be diagnosed with diabetes. Patients diagnosed with pre-diabetes often develop type 2 diabetes within 10 years, according to the National Kidney Foundation.

    How Is Blood Sugar Level Determined?

    • Patients who might be experiencing symptoms of diabetes, such as extreme thirst, sudden weight loss or gain, frequent need to urinate, fatigue, blurred vision or irritability, should take two separate forms of testing on separate days to confirm a diagnosis of diabetes. Tests that can diagnose diabetes and pre-diabetes include fasting plasma glucose test or oral glucose tolerance tests, both of which require fasting. A random plasma glucose test can be utilized to measure blood glucose, yet only diagnoses diabetes, not pre-diabetes.

    Measuring Results: Fasting Plasma Glucose Test

    • For the fasting plasma glucose test, a blood sugar level of 99 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) or below is considered normal; patients with a level of 100 to 125 are considered at pre-diabetes levels; and those with levels of 126 mg/dL or above are diagnosed with advanced diabetes, meaning they will require medications and lifestyle changes to manage their disease, according to the National Kidney Foundation.

    Measuring Results: Oral Glucose Tolerance Test

    • This glucose test requires drinking a sugary drink and then measuring levels after a two-hour span. Patients considered at normal levels have a blood sugar level of 139 mg/dL or below; those with pre-diabetes have levels from 140 to 199 mg/dL; and those with diabetes have a blood sugar level of 200 mg/dL or above, according to the National Kidney Foundation.

    Measuring Results: Random Plasma Glucose Test

    • This type of test can measure a person's blood sugar at any time and does not require fasting. For this test, a blood glucose level of 200 mg/dL or above in addition to diabetes symptoms, means the person has diabetes. This test should be conducted on an additional day to confirm the diagnosis.

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