Updates to Blood Sugar 101

Page Changed: Healthy Blood Sugar Targets

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What If You Can't Always Hit Your Target?

Many of us will see blood sugars higher than we'd like. The good news is that it takes many years of exposure to high blood sugars to damage your organs. If you spike occasionally, but maintain good control overall, your risk of complications is far lower than people whose blood sugar is routinely going up over 200 mg/dl for an hour after every meal--the target that the ADA recommends and most doctors consider "great control." Obsession and eating disorders are not healthy, and diabetes makes it very easy to become obsessed and develop an eating disorder. A few hours a week over your target blood sugar range are not an emergency. It's when you are spending a few hours every day over your target range that it's time to ramp up your efforts to get good control.Not so surprisingly, it is when you are spending several hours a day over 140 mg/dl (7.7 mmol/L) and seeing blood sugars spiking into the truly dangerous 200 mg/dl range (11 mmol/L) that your A1c will rise into the middle 6% range and your heart attack risk and risk of other complications will start to become significant.