24/03/2025
What is the effect of Over Fasting in your laboratory result?
1. Fasting Blood Sugar (FBS)
โช๏ธExtended fasting (more than the usual 8-12 hours) may cause a decrease in blood glucose levels, potentially leading to hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). This could result in an inaccurately low FBS reading, which may not reflect your typical fasting glucose level.
- On the other hand, prolonged fasting could also influence your bodyโs glucagon and insulin response, potentially causing an abnormal FBS reading.
2. Lipid Profile
โช๏ธFor the lipid profile, fasting typically helps standardize the results by lowering chylomicrons (fat particles from recently consumed food) in the blood, making it easier to assess cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
Over-fasting (more than the usual 12 hours) can sometimes lead to an inaccurate measurement of triglycerides because prolonged fasting may artificially reduce triglyceride levels. Similarly, it could cause a transient reduction in HDL (good cholesterol) or a slight increase in LDL (bad cholesterol) levels, affecting the accuracy of the lipid profile results.
The rate at which blood sugar (glucose) levels drop during fasting can vary significantly depending on several factors, including:
1. Individual metabolic rate People with different metabolic rates will experience varying levels of blood sugar drop during fasting.
2. Insulin sensitivity: Individuals with higher insulin sensitivity (such as those without insulin resistance or diabetes) may see a faster decrease in blood sugar.
3. Physical activity: Activity levels during fasting can also influence how quickly blood sugar levels decrease.
4. Presence of medical condition: For instance, people with diabetes or insulin resistance may have different rates of blood sugar decline compared to those without these conditions.
In general, the rate of blood sugar decline doesn't follow a fixed, linear pattern and varies based on the factors mentioned.
For most healthy individuals, blood sugar may decline by about 10โ20 mg/dL per hour in the first few hours of fasting, but this rate can differ greatly.
Source: American Diabetes Association(ADA)
American College of Cardiology(ACC)
Clinical Laboratory Standard Institute(CLSI)