Though daily blood-glucose testing provides you with the best way to examine your levels day-to-day, the tests cannot give you a long-term picture of the effectiveness of your diabetes management program. Daily blood-glucose readings are also affected by the time of day or the meals you have eaten. However, the A1C test provides you with a reliable measurement of how you are managing your blood glucose levels in the long term. The test can also:

• Provide you with feedback on your current treatment strategy. If results indicate that your levels are too high, you should make treatment changes to improve your diabetes management and quality of life, and prevent or delay the onset of health complications.

• Act as a “back-up” to daily self-testing. Sometimes daily testing is not accurately performed. The A1C test provides another measure to compare daily tests against. If you are not self-testing correctly, the results will be inconsistent and you will know to alter your daily testing routine.

• Alert you to health complications. High blood sugar equates to a high risk of developing diabetes-related complications such as vision loss, kidney damage, nerve damage, heart disease, stroke, and gum disease. For each one percent reduction in A1C level, your risk of complications drops by 25 percent.

• Help you to feel better. The benefits of the test all culminate to provide you with better control of your diabetes, therefore helping you to feel well, and live a healthier life.

It is very important to remember that the A1C test in no way replaces daily self-testing of blood glucose. The A1C does not test your daily blood glucose control. Daily testing is crucial for knowing whether or not to adjust medications or other treatment, and for warning you of any emergency situations in your blood glucose levels.

Blood sugar checks and log results are highly important for effective control. However, the A1C test is an excellent additional resource to help better manage diabetes. If you are not currently taking this test and believe you could benefit from it, make sure you talk to your health care team about starting.