Diabetes affects over 30 million people in the United States, which is almost 10 percent of the population. An additional 84 million people have prediabetes.
Abnormal blood sugar levels are a hallmark of this metabolic disease. To measure these levels, physicians use two main methods: they either take fasting blood sugar samples, which informs them of the level of sugar in the blood at that specific point; or they measure levels of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1C).
The glycated hemoglobin test is routinely used to diagnose diabetes, and it relies on the average levels of blood sugar over a period of 3 months.