What Are the Normal Blood Glucose Levels?

Blood glucose or blood sugar, which is one and the same, is your body's main energy supply produced from the carbohydrate foods you eat. Maintaining the correct glucose levels is very important for a healthy, active lifestyle but to benefit from this energy supply your body needs the right amount of a hormone called insulin. Your pancreas produces and releases insulin according to the current need for energy in the body and the quantity of supply of glucose to each cell. Your blood glucose levels usually increase after you eat and then your pancreas releases the proper amount of insulin to help in the digestion of the increased glucose.

Why glucose testing?

When the blood sugar levels dramatically increase and remain over the normal rate or plunge below accepted levels a few hours after eating it can be an indication of hypoglycaemia, which means the cells are resistant to insulin or hyperglycaemia, which indicates poor production of insulin in the pancreas. Taking specific glucose tests can help discover a pre-diabetes or diabetes condition, and be an aid in checking the treatment of diabetes. Continued high glucose levels can become damaging for key organs in the body such as the eyes, kidneys, nerves, and blood vessels. Blood sugar problems require medical treatments to avoid complications so ask your healthcare provider to help you map out an effective treatment plan.

What is the normal range for blood glucose levels?

Your blood sugar levels indicate the content of glucose in your blood at a specific time and since the levels of a healthy, non-diabetic person do not vary greatly beyond 4.4 to 6.1 mmol/l or 82-110 mg/dl, glucose testing should be done at various times to discover if you have a diabetic condition. Normally, your sugar levels are influenced by when you eat, what you have eaten, and what amount you have eaten with sugar levels reaching 7.8 mmol/l or 140 mg/dl after meals.

When you engage in any physical activity you use up more energy so the sugar levels drop during the resting period and increases again after eating, this is why the numbers will vary over a 24 hour period. Glucose levels will usually be the lowest in the morning, before breakfast and will then rise after eating; but if you have been diagnosed with any type of diabetes your glucose readings will be 4 ? 7 mmol/l at fasting rates and after meals it will be under 9 mmol/l with Type 1 diabetes or around 8.5 with Type 2.