Haemoglobin (HbA1c) concentration is an established marker of average blood glucose concentration and has been suggested as a diagnostic or screening tool for diabetes [ 2].
HbA1c represents a surrogate marker of average blood glucose concentration over the previous 8 to 12 weeks, or the average lifespan of the erythrocyte, and thus represents a more stable indicator of glycemic status compared with fasting glucose.
This was done using a linear regression analysis of relative mortality rates over the 15-year period in each local authority to generate a β coefficient value that was used as a marker of average annual percentage decline.
HbA1c therefore represents a surrogate marker of average blood glucose concentration over the previous 8 to 12 weeks, thus representing a longer-term indicator of glycemic status compared with fasting glucose [ 11].
We conducted multivariable regression models adjusting for the potential risk factors age, sex, education, smoking status, alcohol intake, BMI, serum creatinine levels (as a marker of kidney function), serum calcium, glycosylated hemoglobin (a time-integrated marker of average glycemia during the previous 3 months), and hematocrit.
These results were quite similar to those observed by Eliassen et al who reported intra-class correlation coefficients of 0.63 for 2-OHE1, 0.80 for 16 α-OHE1 and 0.73 for their ratio, indicating that a single measurement can be used as a marker of average exposure to these metabolites in epidemiologic studies (Eliassen et al, 2008).
In contrast, haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) is also widely used as a marker of average blood glucose concentrations over the preceding 2 to 3 months and has two advantages over glucose tests: it does not require subjects to fast [ 4], and its intraindividual variability is smaller than that of glucose measurements [ 5].
The current study also reported that compared with a marker of averaged blood glucose level such as HbA1c, MAGE was a more contributing factor of plaque vulnerability.
- Where HbA1c is a "summary" of the average sugar levels over the past 3 6 mo, AGEs in the skin can serve as a marker of the average sugar level of the past 5‒10 y.
