How much blood sugar should a healthy person have?

Sugar, although it is called "white death", but in reasonable quantities, our body needs it, as it is the most affordable and generous source of glucose. The main thing is not to overdo it with eating it, that is, to have an idea of ​​how much blood sugar should be in a healthy person. Now many people consider this natural product to be harmful, and before they treated it with respect, they even treated it for heart and stomach diseases, poisoning, and nervous disorders. Nowadays, you can hear that sugar improves brain function. Therefore, some students before exams try to eat more sweet. In principle, both ancient healers and current sweet tooth students are not far from the truth, because sugar, or rather glucose, is indeed a very important product for the normal functioning of the body, including the brain, but only subject to the observance of the norm. How much sugar should be in human blood is not an idle question. If it is more than necessary, a serious illness of the rich and poor is diagnosed - diabetes. If sugar is less than normal, the situation is even worse, as a person can quickly fall into a coma and die.

Is sugar good or bad?

Even the little ones know what sugar is. Without it, many cannot imagine tea, coffee. Clear business, cakes and pies are not without it. Sugar belongs to the group of carbohydrates needed by the body not only to provide it with energy. Without them, metabolic processes cannot proceed correctly. Some beauties, for the sake of a slim figure, exclude carbohydrates from the menu, not realizing that they thereby provoke dangerous diseases. How much sugar should be in the blood of a person so as not to hurt?

The average values ​​expressed in molles per liter are 3.5, the maximum is 5.5.

Sugar molecules are quite complex, and they simply can’t leak through the walls of blood vessels. With food eaten, sugar first enters the stomach. There, for its molecules, consisting of various compounds of carbon atoms, oxygen and hydrogen, special enzymes are taken - glycoside hydrolases. They break down large and bulk sugar molecules into smaller and simpler fructose and glucose molecules. So they enter our bloodstream, being absorbed by the intestinal walls. Glucose seeps through the walls of the intestines easily and quickly. Finding out how much sugar should be in the blood implies this particular chemical. It is needed by all human organs as a source of energy. It is especially difficult without it to the brain, muscles, heart. Moreover, the brain, in addition to glucose, can not absorb any other source of energy. Fructose is absorbed somewhat more slowly. Once in the liver, it undergoes a series of structural changes and becomes the same glucose. The body uses it as much as it needs, and the residues converted into glycogen “stockpiles” in the muscles and in the liver.

Where does excess sugar come from?

If people completely refuse sweets, they will still have sugar in their blood . This is because almost all products contain some amount of it. It is found in many drinks, in sauces, in various instant cereals, in fruits, vegetables, even in sausage, sorrel and onion. Therefore, do not be scared if you have sugar in your blood. It's quite normal. The main thing is to know what the level of sugar in the blood should be, and monitor this. We repeat, in a healthy adult, but not an old person, from morning to breakfast, the sugar norm, measured in mmoles (millimoles) per liter, is this:

• 3.5-5.5 when analyzing from a finger;
• 4.0 - 6.1 when analyzed from a vein.

Why is sugar measured in the morning? Our body in critical conditions (for example, overstrain, elementary fatigue) is able to independently "make" glucose from existing internal reserves. They are amino acids, glycerol and lactate. This process is called gluconeogenesis. It occurs mainly in the liver, but can also be carried out in the intestinal mucosa and in the kidneys. In a short period of time, gluconeogenesis is not dangerous, on the contrary, it supports the normal functioning of body systems. But its long course leads to very disastrous results, since the vital structures of the body begin to break down to produce glucose.

At night, after waking a sleeping person, one should also not take samples for sugar, because when all human organs are in a state of complete rest, the amount of sugar in his blood decreases.

Now let’s explain why the given norm is not typical for any age of a person. The fact is that over the years, all body systems age, and the absorption of glucose decreases. How much sugar should be in the blood of people over 60? Medicine has determined for them, with units of mmol / l, the norm is: 4.6-6.4. For those over 90 years old, the norms are about the same: 4.2-6.7.

“Jumping” the sugar level also comes from our emotional state, from stress, fear, excitement, because some hormones, such as adrenaline, “make” the liver synthesize additional sugar, so you need to measure its amount in the blood in a good mood.

But the sugar norm does not depend on gender at all, that is, the figures given are the same for women and men.

Blood Sugar and Food

If a person is not at risk, that is, his immediate family does not suffer from diabetes, and if he himself does not notice signs of this disease, he should measure fasting blood sugar. As noted above, this delicious product is found in so many products. But even if they are not included in the daily nutrition menu, specific enzymes can break down to glucose not only classical sugar molecules (sucrose), but also maltose, lactose, nigerose (this is black rice sugar), trehalose, turanose, starch, inulin, pectin and some other molecules. How much blood sugar should be after a meal depends not only on the composition of the dishes. It is also important how much time has passed after the meal. We put out the indicators in the table.

Increased sugar is not a harbinger of something bad with health and only means that the body has received enough material for its daily work.

Patients with diabetes must measure their blood sugar at home many times: before meals, and after all meals, that is, constantly keep it under control. How much blood sugar should such patients have? The level should not exceed the following indicators:

• before breakfast - 6.1 mmol / l, but not more;
• after any prima meal, no more than 10.1 mmol / L.

Of course, a person can take blood for analysis only from a finger. For this, there is an unusually simple glucometer device. All that is required is to press it to the finger until a drop of blood appears, and after a moment the result will appear on the screen.

If blood is taken from a vein, the norm will be slightly different.

You can lower the level of glucose (or, as is commonly called sugar) with the help of very tasty foods:

• grain bread;
• vegetables and fruits with sourness;
• protein food.

The role of insulin

So, we have already discussed how much blood sugar should be. This indicator depends on the only hormone - insulin. Glucose, which is in the blood, can be taken independently only by some organs of a person. It:

• heart;
• nerves;
• brain;
• kidneys
• testes.

They are called non-insulin independent.

It helps everyone else to use glucose insulin. This hormone is produced by special cells of a small organ - the pancreas, which in medicine are called islets of Langerhans. In the body, insulin is the most important hormone, which has a lot of functions, but the main one is to help glucose penetrate plasma membranes into organs that don’t take glucose without additional help. They are called insulin-dependent.

If, for various reasons, the islets of Langerhans do not want to produce insulin at all or do not produce it enough, hyperglycemia develops, and doctors diagnose type 1 diabetes.

It often happens that insulin is produced enough and even more than necessary, and blood sugar is still a bit too much. This occurs when insulin has abnormalities in its structure and cannot sufficiently transport glucose (or the mechanisms of this transportation themselves are disrupted). In any case, type 2 diabetes is diagnosed.

Stages of diabetes

Both diseases have three stages of severity, each with its own indicators. How much should blood sugar show in the morning, even before a small snack? We put the data into the table.

With a mild degree of the disease, you can do without medications by regulating sugar with a diet.

With moderate severity, the patient is prescribed a diet and taking oral medications (tablets) that reduce sugar.

In severe cases, patients are required to receive insulin daily (according to standard practice, this happens in the form of injections).

In addition to types of diabetes, there are its phases:

• compensation (blood sugar returns to normal, absent in urine);
• subcompensation (in the blood, the indicator is not more than 13.9 mmol / liter, and up to 50 grams of sugar with urine);
• decompensation (a lot of sugar in the urine of patients and in the blood) - this form is the most dangerous, fraught with hyperglycemic coma.

Glucose susceptibility test

The first signs of diabetes are thirst quenching and increased urination. In this case, sugar may not be in the urine. It begins to be released when the concentration of glucose in the blood that the kidneys are able to process is exceeded. Doctors set this value at 10 mmol / L and above.

When diabetes is suspected, a special glucose susceptibility test is performed. This type of analysis is as follows: the patient is offered to drink 300 ml of water without gas, in which 75 g of glucose powder is diluted. After that, a blood test is carried out every hour. To reach a verdict, take the average of the three final results and compare them with the control sugar level, which was determined before glucose was taken.

How much mmol should there be blood sugar? For better clarity, we put out the information in the table.

During the test, the patient in parallel with the blood is taken for analysis and urine. Before taking the tests, a person should not eat from 8 hours, have a good rest and not have infectious diseases.

You don’t need to go on a diet before the test.

Sugar during pregnancy

There is a condition called gestational diabetes, or pregnant diabetes. This means that in women with a period of 28 weeks or more, sugar is found in blood in excess of the norm. This happens due to hormonal disorders and due to the production of placenta by estrogen, lactogen, progesterone, that is, steroid hormones. In most pregnant women, after the baby is born, the sugar returns to normal, but anyway, if there was already gestational diabetes, this is the first signal that true diabetes may appear in the future. A sugar test at the first visit to the antenatal clinic should be done for all pregnant women. How much blood sugar should be normal? The indicators are the same as for all non-pregnant women, namely: on a completely empty stomach (even drinks can not be taken) 3.5-5.5 mmol / l.

If the pregnant woman does not notice symptoms of diabetes and is not at risk, a second analysis is prescribed after 28 weeks.

If a woman suffered from diabetes before pregnancy, her blood sugar is monitored regularly, and appropriate treatment is prescribed.

Increased sugar levels are fraught with complications:

• polyhydramnios;
• miscarriages;
• premature birth;
• birth injuries in mother and baby;
• death of the fetus.

Scrupulous monitoring of blood sugar is carried out by those pregnant women who are at risk. The criteria are as follows:

• obesity;
• sugar found in urine;
• among relatives there are people suffering from diabetes;
• carbohydrate metabolism malfunctions detected;
• age over 35 years;
• during the first pregnancy, they were already diagnosed with gestational diabetes;
• there are ovarian diseases;
• previous pregnancy was complicated by polyhydramnios and / or large fetus;
• the presence of arterial hypertension;
• severe gestosis.

Pregnant Glucose Susceptibility Test

If a woman is at risk, already at her first visit to the gynecologist about pregnancy, she will be screened for glucose susceptibility. In this case, you do not need to measure fasting blood sugar. Screening is as follows: a pregnant woman, regardless of whether she ate something, or did not eat, give water to drink (about a glass) with 50 grams of glucose diluted in it, and after an hour, blood sugar (from a vein) is measured. The value should not exceed 7.8 (mmol / L).

If the value is greater, conduct a full test.

Previously, the woman is preparing. Three days before the test, she should eat at least 150 grams of carbohydrates every day. Also, she should, as usual, walk, do all the work that the body feels the need for glucose.

On the fourth day - already on an empty stomach - she gives blood from a vein, and only after that she drinks 75 grams of glucose diluted in water. Further, blood sugar measurements are carried out three times every hour. Normal blood sugar how much should be? We propose determining indicators according to the Somoji-Nelson system.

1. Values ​​in venous blood: 5.0 - 9.2 - 8.2 - 7.0 mmol / L.
2. Values ​​in plasma: 5.9 - 10.6 - 9.2 - 8.1 mmol / L.

If necessary, glucose is administered not orally, but intravenously.

The test is not carried out in the following cases:

• toxicosis;
• the pregnant woman does not get out of bed;
• exacerbation of pancreatitis;
• infectious diseases.

Blood sugar in children

In infants, problems with blood glucose are rare. You can identify them by signs:

• the child is naughty for no apparent reason;
• he has a constant thirst;
• diaper rash does not heal for a long time;
• excessive urination;
• rapid pulse.

In newborns, how much sugar should be normal in blood? Values ​​may vary between 2.8-4.4 mmol / L.

This is slightly lower than in adults, since the metabolic reactions in the child's body have not yet stabilized.

Sugar rises in case of pancreatic cell malfunction. At risk are babies whose parents are ill with diabetes.

Norms of glucose, or, as they often say, sugar in babies in the blood at the age of up to 5 years are as follows: from 3.3 to 5.0 mmol / l. At an older age, the standards are the same as for adults.

If the test produces a result of 6 mmol / L or higher, the child is tested for glucose susceptibility. The principle of its implementation is the same as for adults. The only difference is the amount of glucose used for the load. It is prescribed based on the body weight of a small patient. Up to 3 years - 2 grams per 1 kg of weight, up to 12 years - 1.75 g per 1 kg, and for older ones - 1.25 g per 1 kg, but not more than 25 g in total.

Normal blood sugar how much should be during the test? We put out the indicators in the table.

If the indications are higher, the child is prescribed treatment.

Hypoglycemia, or lack of blood sugar

When there are too few sugar molecules in the blood, absolutely all organs lack energy for their activity, and the condition is called hypoglycemia. With it, a person may experience loss of consciousness and coma, and death after it. How much should be the norm of blood sugar, we indicated above. And what indicators can be considered dangerously low?

Doctors call numbers less than 3.3 mmol / l, if you take blood from a finger for analysis, and below 3.5 mmol / l in venous blood. The limit value is 2.7 mmol / L. A person can then be helped without drugs by simply eating fast carbohydrates (honey, watermelon, banana, persimmon, beer, ketchup) or d-glucose, which is already able to penetrate into the bloodstream.

If the sugar values ​​are even lower, the patient may need specialized help. It is especially important for hypoglycemia to know how much blood sugar should be in the evening. If the meter gave 7-8 mmol / l - it's okay, but if the device gave 5 mmol / l or even less - a dream can go into a coma.

Reasons for low sugar:

• malnutrition;
• dehydration;
• an overdose of insulin and hypoglycemic agents;
• high physical activity;
• alcohol;
• some diseases.

There are many symptoms of hypoglycemia. Among the main and most characteristic are the following:

• weakness;
• high sweating;
• tremor;
• dilated pupils;
• nausea;
• dizziness;
• respiratory failure.

Often, to remove such symptoms, it is good enough to eat.