Hey, this is Dr day. And in today's module, we're going to look at labs. So this is going to be a short module. But a really, really important one. You'll see on the handout associated with this video, all of the labs that I recommend, and a lot of them are really standard. But I'd like to highlight a few of them that are really important for you to consider, and that your doctor may or may not actually have as part of their standard panel.
The first thing you want to look at is your fasting blood sugar level. That tells you in the moment that they draw the blood where your blood sugars are, if you haven't eaten, and they should be normally anywhere between 99 and 65 milligrams per deciliter. And that's the one whenever you pick yourself in the morning, that's the one that you're taking. So that's pretty Standard, a second one, which should be mandatory for every person. The next is your HPA one c levels are sometimes known as your a one c levels. Now, this actually gives us an average of about two to three months shows you what your blood sugars are, and you want them to be normal.
What's considered normal for your HPA one c is less than 5.6 or 5.7. Now, personally, I like to see it at five or below. But when you look at labs 5.6 or below is considered normal. If it's between 5.6 and 6.4, then they could classify you as having pre diabetes. And this again, is when your body is not operating normally, but it's easier to get back and reverse To the normal range. So if you're in that range, now is the time to be super motivated so that you don't cross over into 6.5 or above, which is considered diabetes.
And the reason why the HPA one C is important is because it looks at that three month range. The next lab that actually isn't done very often, but I think is very important, are looking at your insulin levels. Because remember from the previous video, high insulin levels or insulin resistance generally happens before you actually get high glucose levels. So what I often recommend is that we get a snapshot of your insulin levels as well. And in the best case scenario, what I would recommend is a glucose tolerance test that looks at your glucose levels, but also looks at your insulin levels. And so you can see, are you producing too much insulin because insulin actually is what creates damage to so many different cells of your body.
Finally, I like to look at inflammation markers as well, the underlying cause of diabetes is inflammation. So I like to look at a sensitive c RPS, that's us highly sensitive, C reactive protein that lets us know what are the levels in your body of inflammation in general. So it definitely helps us with diabetes but can help us with other things. The other thing I like to look at is your homocysteine levels, because your homocysteine levels also give us some information about the amount of inflammation in your body. So when you look at the handout, you'll see all of these labs Plus others that I recommend that are standard. And that you can take that list to your doctor and ask them to do those tests, compare the numbers so that you can see how your overall health is.
But these are also particularly important for diabetes. So there you have it a list of labs that actually let you know how you're doing. And again, we can check back in three months, and make sure that the lifestyle issues that you're implementing from this program are actually making a difference in your lab values as well. I will see you in the next module.