Fasting Blood Sugar and HbA1c
India has over 101 million people living with diabetes, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research's ICMR-INDIAB study published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology. The majority were undiagnosed for years before their first test. A fasting blood sugar test tells you where you stand on a single morning. HbA1c tells you something more useful: your average blood glucose over the previous three months, smoothing out the daily noise. At 30, with no symptoms and a family history of diabetes, an HbA1c above 5.7% puts you in the pre-diabetic range, a window where dietary changes alone can reverse the trajectory. Most people don't find out until 5.7% is a memory.
