Post Prandial Blood Sugar

Postprandial blood sugar test is used to measure the amount of glucose present in our blood, after two hours of eating. This test indicates how your body responds to sugar and starch after you have a meal.

Importance of Glucose:

As the food gets digested the levels of blood glucose or blood sugar increase rapidly. The pancreas releases insulin in response to the elevated blood glucose levels to convert it into fuel. Within two hours of having a meal, insulin levels and glucose levels should get back to normal, but if your blood glucose levels remain high it may indicate the presence of diabetes.

The main source of energy for all the cells in our body mostly for brain cells comes from glucose. Glucose acts as a building block for carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are commonly found in rice, cereals, bread, fruit or pasta. Carbohydrates are immediately converted to glucose, thus increasing the glucose levels in your blood. This condition is called diabetes.

Why this test is performed?

This test may be recommended to you if you experience any of the symptoms like increase urge to urinate, blurred vision, recent weight gain, confusion, change in behavior, if you experience seizures for the first time, loss of consciousness, etc. Increase in your blood sugar levels and diabetes may not always show all the symptoms.

Depending on your postprandial blood sugar test results your doctor may indicate fasting blood glucose test, random blood glucose test, HbA1c test or glucose tolerance test.

Precautions

Some medicines may also alter your random blood sugar levels like contraceptive pills, diuretics like furosemide, torsemide, etc, if you are on hormone therapy, corticosteroids like prednisone, prednisolone, etc, aspirin, phenytoin, lithium, epinephrine, sulfonylurea drugs like glimepiride, glipizide etc, tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline, etc.

Inform your doctor about your past illness or medications, about your present illness and current medication prior to the test.

If your postprandial blood sugar test is higher than the normal range it may indicate diabetes. Usually, the test results depend upon your age, gender, health history, methods used to perform the test.

Sometimes other medical problems may also lead to high blood sugar levels, like pancreatic cancer, overactive thyroid gland, pancreatitis where pancreas are swollen, stress, trauma, stroke, heart attack, surgery, acromegaly, glucagonoma, pheochromocytoma, Cushing syndrome, etc.

Low-level blood sugar may be due to pituitary gland disorder like hypopituitarism, too little food, too much insulin or diabetic medicines, liver disease or kidney disease, underactive adrenal gland or thyroid gland, vigorous exercise, weight loss post surgery, tumor in the pancreas, etc.