A1c test for cats

Status
Not open for further replies.
This post is just spam, so do not believe it.

Tests that give you an average blood glucose level are not necessary if you are home monitoring. You can just average the numbers on your spreadsheet.

Such tests also will not show how insulin is working on your cat, nor will it allow you to catch hypoglycemic incidents or determine dose increases or decreases.
 
It is not spam, I have contact with him on Rebecca's Feline Diabetes facebook page. It's at Florida State University.

Here is the abstracts, which he kindly gave when I asked if they had published yet



"The abstract from Clinical Chemistry: Six of Eight Hemoglobin A1c Point-of-Care Instruments Do Not Meet the General Accepted Analytical Performance Criteria. BACKGROUND: Hemoglobin A1c (Hb A1c) point-of-care(POC) instruments... are widely used to provide rapidturnaround results in diabetic care centers. We investigated the conformance of various Hb A1cPOC instruments (In2it from Bio-Rad, DCA Vantage from Siemens, Afinion and Nycocard from Axis-Shield, Clover from Infopia, InnovaStar from DiaSys,A1CNow from Bayer, and Quo-Test from Quotient Diagnostics) with generally accepted performance criteria for Hb A1c"


Also if wanting to beta testing it at home, only two drops of blood is needed and can be taken from the ear.
 
I was wondering how this is better from the fructosamine blood test? Other than the obvious - 2-3 weeks for fructosamine and 90 days for the A1C.
 
as i posted on his post on fb:

while i can appreciate the theory i have to disagree though on the statement "which is way better than trying to use a glucose meter on a daily basis" because nothing is better than testing on a daily basis. an average of what the cat's BG level has been for the last 90 days is useless beyond the initial diagnosis and can be done anyway with the numbers obtained on a daily basis. the average for the last 90 days doesn't tell you if the insulin dose is enough, too little, or too much nor will it tell you if a cat is hypoglycemic right now. relying on a test every once in a while is also not too safe for the cat

and i'd probably drop the idea of lancing the inside of a cat's lip. not gonna happen with the majority of cats. switch it up to the ear or paw as that's much more doable and won't put off people on the idea of treatment if this will be marketed as doable at home like the human ones are.

also, isn't this just another form of the fructosamine? so why is it needed exactly? would it be cheaper than a fructosamine perhaps?
 
Sorry, I assumed it was spam since the same post was copied and pasted into several threads, and the web site is commercial.

Regardless, how could this test possibly be more accurate than blood glucose monitoring if it's giving a 90 day average? It would be even worse than trying to determine dosing based on a fructosamine.

I suppose it might be useful at diagnosis, but the statement "It lets the vet know the average glucose levels for the last ~90 days which is way better than trying to use a glucose meter on a daily basis" is by no means true.
 
Agree that it will not replace daily testing. I also thought that it was about the same (diff time span) as fructosamine. What is the anticipated cost and what is the turnaround for results? These might be two interesting factors in fruct vs this test.
 
Like the human A1C or the feline fructosamine, it would be useful for initial diagnosis (rules out infection or stress induced hyperglycemia), but is not useful for the day to day treatment of an insulin dependent diabetic. Even humans need to check BGs daily before shots. An average BG (A1C or fructosamine) is of limited use in active treatment of diabetes.

Can you explain why this would be more useful than the fructosamine that is already being used?
 
Fructosamine uses albumin to measure the plasma glucose level, while A1c uses hemoglobin to measure
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructosamine that is the difference between them and also the time frame then. It has something to do with the different albumin cells and different hemoglobin cells, their lenght of life. Something complicated.


Some years ago, when I was looking into the human diabetes care as a reference for Simba's care, I learnt that A1c is commonly used for humans (who are easier to deal with than cats!) and in 2008 I asked at our animal hospital if there was any A1c-tests for cats. Ever since 2007, since Simba is so difficult to regulate, I've done consistent fructosamine tests every half year. And we've gone from 800's in 2007 to 300's in 2011. Over such a time period the fructosamine makes sense. However, even as a helpful tool for me, like a guide, the drawback with the fructosamine is that it only shows the plasma levels the last 2-3 weeks. If there was an relaible A1c test showing the last 3 months, I would do that instead, or also. But I hind paw test on Simba and can't use the ears, since he has ear injuries, and that seem to disqualify Simba as a beta tester. Also being in another country.


One thing I wonder though, since human diabetes and cat diabetes are differently handled: Humans seems to have a mix of different insulins, first as basic dosage they have a long term insulin, then for meals or throughout the day, they have a faster and short acting insulin. The A1c for humans is used to check off their basic dosage. That much I know. But the majority (I think) of our cats only uses only one type of insulin, functioning both as basic and throughout the day insulin. And the differences of the different types of insulin seem to be so different - is the A1c-test of cats also geared to a specific kind of insulin type?
 
I wouldn't give up daily testing for anything. I assumed a beta test would be in conjunction to daily testing, to compare the two. The daily tests don’t necessarily catch everything that happens in 24 hours, just snapshots of when we test. Weezer has been bouncy lately and I’m trying to bring her down from 6U of humulin twice a day. She has been on 3U for the last few days. Sunday’s PMPS was 252, Monday’s AMPS was 312, Monday’s PMPS was 227, Tuesday’s AMPS was 308. I don’t know what is going on with her at night. Yesterday she thought she was starving. We recently got a smart cat box so I can measure her urine output and test for ketones, etc. Last night I finally got the test strips and tested her urine for the first time. The glucose read at the highest level! If I hadn’t just taken her bg (287) I would have freaked! Maybe having an accurate A1c that averages everything (whether we caught it or not) will give us just one more source of info to help us help our sugarcats.
 
lgrooms said:
I wouldn't give up daily testing for anything. I assumed a beta test would be in conjunction to daily testing, to compare the two. The daily tests don’t necessarily catch everything that happens in 24 hours, just snapshots of when we test. Weezer has been bouncy lately and I’m trying to bring her down from 6U of humulin twice a day. She has been on 3U for the last few days. Sunday’s PMPS was 252, Monday’s AMPS was 312, Monday’s PMPS was 227, Tuesday’s AMPS was 308. I don’t know what is going on with her at night. Yesterday she thought she was starving. We recently got a smart cat box so I can measure her urine output and test for ketones, etc. Last night I finally got the test strips and tested her urine for the first time. The glucose read at the highest level! If I hadn’t just taken her bg (287) I would have freaked! Maybe having an accurate A1c that averages everything (whether we caught it or not) will give us just one more source of info to help us help our sugarcats.
Click to expand...

Linda, have you thought about switching insulins? Slow acting insulins work much better and will give you more even numbers. Bandit's numbers on Lantus never really varied enough where I couldn't just average the numbers on his spreadsheet to get a weekly/monthly/tri-monthly picture. As long as you're getting a representative number of tests, you can just plug an average function into your spreadsheet. It's not going to be as exactly accurate, but you don't need an exact number to benchmark progress, just a range.
 
I have a request to change to Lantus pending with our vet now. He isn't familiar with it, so I sent him some links to check out. Weezer is doing relatively well on humulin, but seeing how many cats are more easily regulated on lantus, I am eager to make the change. I may be joining the lantus forum soon. :razz:
 
With Humulin N, I'd want to know more than just preshot values...assuming you are getting some spot checks in at +4 ish?
 
Linda,
Your spreadsheet looks like KT's - Humulin N also. I don't give him nearly as much as you are...just decreased him a little as the higher dose (trying to get out of the 200's) was creating too much bounce.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top