Confused about A1c

[kowalski]

Does anyone know how much you can really tell from your A1c result? Because it's an average of 3 months but say you've got a blood sugar of 10 in the morning and a hypo of 3 later in the day, the average would be 6.5 which doesn't really reflect what your blood sugar readings have been like...

[Eddy]

You're correct. The A1c is just an average. An average BG of 6.5 might mean a steady 6.5, or it could mean half the time at 2.0 and half the time at 11.0.

Also, as I understand it: A1c % does not correlate exactly with average mmol/L BG readings. Different people have analyzed data to try finding what a "good" formula is... but one person with an average BG of 7.0 might have an A1c of 5.5%, whereas someone else's A1c ends up at 6.3%.

This is why many doctors get worried when they see diabetics with low A1c numbers: They're concerned that it's taking too many hypos to bring the A1c down.