Learn Your Way to A Healthier Life

Learn how glucometers can protect anyone with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) during Halloween without compromising your blood sugar levels!

When used correctly, blood glucose meters are usually accurate. As the meter and strips get older, they may be less correct. Consider these other factors that affect meter accuracy and how to resolve them.

When you eat a carbohydrate (these are starchy foods, whole grains, fruit, milk, yogurt, or food or drinks with added sugar), your blood sugars rise at different rates, and fall at different rates. How do different carbohydrates, and how do they affect my body? Let me show you! The best way to distinguish between these different reaction speeds of carbohydrates is to lump them into three main subcategories: the sweet or simple ones, refined or starchy ones low in fiber,...

The brain relies only on sugar to function, so it begins suffering when blood sugar (blood glucose) levels are low, usually less than 70 mg/dl. Hypoglycemia generally occurs when there is an excess of glucose lowering medications, after a long or intense exercise session or inadequate carbohydrate intake. However, it is important to talk to your health care provider about your individual blood glucose targets, and what level is too low for you. Hypoglycemic symptoms are important clues that you...

It happens all the time: We go a little too long without eating, or skip a meal because we are occupied, or go to sleep without dinner or an evening snack. The blood sugar when we skip a meal begins to drop. Some of us feel when our blood sugar becomes low, but many people have no symptoms of low glucose at all. If you don't know to correct a low blood sugar, sometimes your body will try to correct...

Since glucometer lancets are so fine, they are also delicate. Each time they puncture the skin, they cause microscopic burrs and dents in the needle. Learn what happens when a lancet is reused.

Hemoglobin A1c or simply as A1c is one of the diagnostic tests for diabetes and its result can illustrate people’s average blood glucose level for the past three months. The diagnostic A1c level for diabetes is starting from 6.5% and up. Studies have shown that diabetic patients’ risk of certain diabetes complications, such as eye, kidney, nerve and heart disease, can be decreased significantly even with 1% drop in their A1c. So what does the result of A1c do for...