Hi guys,

You may or may not remember a post back in September which I wrote called ‘The all powerful HbA1c’ in which I talked about HbA1c a little and how despite it being an important tool for gauaging how our BGs are overall, it isn’t necessarily a definitive tool. Specifically, this is because it is possible to ignore fluctuations in glycemic control because the figure is an average and therefore, can hide large variability.

Anyway, I made mention in that post of some articles that I was hoping to get some references for because some research had come out indicating that fluctuations in glycemic control may be just as harmful as consistently evelated BG. It has taken a lot longer that I would have liked but I have finally been able to get my hands on two links!

The first paper (well abstract actually) that I’ve located is called Glycemic Variability. Should we and can we prevent it by Louis Monnier, MD from the Department of Metabolic Diseases, Lapeyronie Hospital in Montpellier, France and Claude Colette, PHD from Laboratory of Human Nutrition, University Institute of Clinical Research, Montpellier, France.

The second paper, entitled Assessing Glycemia in Diabetes Using Self-monitoring Blood Glucose and HemoglobinA1c is by Christopher D. Saudek, MD; Rachel L. Derr, MD; Rita R. Kalyani, MD and is the full paper from what I can tell.

While they don’t make for a riviting read by any stretch of the imagination, they are certainly interesting and it’s worth reading the abstracts of both which summarise the purpose of the research, the methodology and results plus a quick summary of the discussion. So, if you get time and you are even mildly interested then I’d give them a once over.

Happy reading!

- Aaron