Tests and Diagnosis

Maj Hemstad
Having high blood glucose or high blood sugar levels is the primary indicator of diabetes. For this reason, all the tests conducted to diagnose diabetes involve checking blood glucose levels.

Lt Col Reynolds
Some providers may use only one kind of test to check blood glucose levels, but others will use more than one kind of test to verify results. If you have symptoms of diabetes, your provider may use one or any combination of the following tests to measure your blood glucose levels:

• A1C, or glycohemoglobin
• Fasting plasma glucose, or FPG, and
• Random plasma glucose, or RPG

Maj Hemstad
If these blood glucose tests indicate diabetes, the next step is to determine whether it’s type 1 or type 2 diabetes. Family history and the presence of other risk factors, such as metabolic syndrome and obesity, are usually sufficient to diagnose type 2 diabetes. If type 1 is suspected, further diagnostic blood tests checking for autoantibodies will be performed.