What a normal blood sugar is for a woman over 60
The honest answer is that Dr. Martin will not give you one number off a fasting glucose, because he does not think that test is answering the question. He wants A1C, and he wants it lower than the lab's version of normal.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 782And when you get an A1C test, much better than fasting glucose, it's a much more descriptive test.
Descriptive is the right word. A fasting glucose describes one morning. An A1C describes a season.
The standard range, and the number he wants
He quotes the conventional figure first, and he quotes it in order to disagree with it. The world tells us 5.7 and below is a normal A1C.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 782I'm not big on that number. 5.7 A1C is not good. It's way too high.
To be clear about which number is whose: 5.7 is the standard, not his. Here is where he puts the line on this episode.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 782Well, new studies, and I brought to you this months ago, I talked to you about studies that are showing anything over above 4.7 to 4.8 is you're starting to get what we call resistance to insulin, okay?
That is a wide gap between what gets called normal and what he wants to see, and it explains why so many women are told their blood sugar is fine while everything else on the panel is drifting.
His argument for the lower line is what he thinks A1C is for. Medicine treats it as a diabetes test, with another threshold above which you get the label. He treats it as an insulin resistance test, which is a much earlier conversation.
"Diabetes is the last thing that will happen to your body, not the first thing."
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 782What A1C measures, in plain words
The proper name is glycated hemoglobin, which he admits is a mouthful, so he builds it up from parts.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 782What A1C is, it's an average of glucose, sugar, attached to hemoglobin.
Hemoglobin sits in the middle of your red blood cell. Every time you breathe, it picks up oxygen and carries it. His word for how oxygen holds on is Velcro.
Then the part most people have never been told. Oxygen is not the only thing that sticks to hemoglobin. Sugar does too, by the same Velcro. Eat sugar and crappy carbohydrates and some of it is left riding in the bloodstream, and some of that attaches.
A red blood cell lives about four months, so the lab takes the average of that attached sugar over roughly two to three months and hands you one figure. That is your A1C.
Why a single morning reading tells you less
This is the practical reason he prefers it, and it is not a technical one. A fasting glucose can be managed. Eat carefully for a day, arrive early, and the number arrives with you.
An average over three months cannot be. It takes in the good weeks and the ordinary ones, the holidays and the nights nobody cooked. It answers for how you actually eat rather than how you eat when you know you are being measured.
The same feature makes it a useful thing to watch. Change what you eat and the number moves, but slowly enough that you know the change was real.
Diabetes is the last thing to arrive
This is the sentence that sits behind everything above, and it is the reason he wants the number read early rather than when a label arrives.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 782Diabetes is the last thing that will happen to your body, not the first thing.
His picture is that you have been on that road for a long time before anyone names it, and that A1C is one of the ways to see where on the road you are. The study he is citing on this episode is about blood vessels rather than diabetes, and what he takes from it is this.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 782The lower your A1C is the better it is for your blood vessels.
He points out it can be very quiet. No symptoms yet, blood pressure still fine. That is his case for looking at a number that moves before anything hurts.
The tests to ask for, and what sets the number
What he actually asks people to bring him is short, and none of it replaces your own doctor.
- A1C first, rather than a single fasting glucose
- Triglycerides, which he calls fat balls
- HDL, read against the triglycerides rather than on its own
- The date of the last one, so you can see which way it is moving
And what moves A1C is food, specifically the rapid carbohydrates. Bread, cereal, juice, crackers and anything that turns to sugar before it gets very far. He is not asking anyone to stop a medication or to self diagnose. He is asking for a number to be read earlier, and lower, than it usually is.
If the food side is where you want to start, read does eating red meat give you diabetes next.
Common questions
What is a normal blood sugar level for a 60 year old woman?
The standard normal A1C is 5.7 and below. Dr. Martin rejects that as already too high, and on this episode he cites studies putting the start of insulin resistance above about 4.7 to 4.8.
Is A1C better than a fasting glucose test?
He says so plainly. He calls A1C much better than fasting glucose and a much more descriptive test, because it averages two to three months rather than one morning.
What does A1C actually measure?
Sugar attached to hemoglobin, averaged over the life of the red blood cell. He describes hemoglobin as Velcro that oxygen sticks to, and says sugar sticks to it the same way.
Can I change my A1C?
He treats it as a food number. The rapid carbohydrates are what raise it, and because it is a two to three month average it moves when a normal month of eating moves.
Read next: Prediabetes At 60: What Dr. Martin Would Do First and Can You Get Type 2 Diabetes After 60?.
Where Blood Sugar Support Formula fits
Martin Clinic's Blood Sugar Support Formula is the one he points at alongside the food, since the food is what sets a three month average.
Shop Blood Sugar Support Formula
60-day money-back guarantee. Cortisol pushes blood sugar up too, and that is Cortisol Control Formula.These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Always consult your healthcare practitioner before starting a new supplement, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition.
