A Guide To Juvenile Diabetes Diagnosis

Diabetes is a disease where pancreas is unable to secrete enough insulin, or the insulin produced by the body is not used properly, giving rise to high level of sugar in the blood. There are mainly two types of diabetes. Type-1 is also known as juvenile diabetes, and usually starts at early age. In this type of diabetes, immune system of the body attacks and destroys the pancreatic cells, and hence, pancreas can no longer produce insulin. In type-2, liver, muscle and fat cells do not properly utilize the insulin.

Juvenile Diabetes Diagnosis

There are many tests that are used for juvenile diabetes diagnosis. Fasting plasma glucose test is used to measure the blood glucose in the person who has been fasting for at least 8 hours. This test is used to detect pre-diabetes and diabetes.

Oral glucose tolerance test measures the level of glucose in the blood after fasting for 8 hours, and two hours after drinking glucose containing beverage. Random plasma glucose test measures blood glucose level irrespective of when person ate last.

Some of the other tests for juvenile diabetes diagnosis include urine test, blood test, glucose-tolerant test and fasting blood sugar.

For urine test, a urine sample is taken, and is used to detect the ketones and glucose. Ketones are the acids released in the urine and blood when instead of glucose, the body starts using fat for the energy.

Blood test that is used for juvenile diabetes diagnosis includes measuring the amount of glucose in the bloodstream. Glucose tolerance test is used to check the ability of body to process the glucose. Levels of sugar in urine and blood are monitored for three hours after taking large portion of sugar solution. Fasting blood sugar involves fasting for a night, and the blood is drawn next morning.

For juvenile diabetes diagnosis, the complete physical examination is done, and medical history is recorded, in addition to conducting all the lab tests.

Any person over the age of 30 must undergo the juvenile diabetes diagnosis once a year. A negative result does not meant that the person will never get the disease, but is just indicates that the person is not having diabetes at the time of the test. The diagnosis must be based on blood glucose estimates, and it must be made clear if blood glucose estimation has been done on venous plasma, capillary blood, or whole venous blood.

There are certain signs and symptoms of diabetes that may indicate people to go for juvenile diabetes diagnosis, but many people do not exhibit any of these symptoms despite suffering from the disease.