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Criteria for Diagnosing Diabetes

Table of Contents


Overview

Doctors use blood tests and follow guidelines from experts to diagnose diabetes.1

Criteria for diabetes

You will be diagnosed with diabetes if you meet one of the following criteria:

Two tests are used to confirm the diagnosis of diabetes.

Criteria for prediabetes

You may be diagnosed with prediabetes if your blood sugar is above normal but not high enough to be diabetes. You have prediabetes if you meet one of the following criteria:

Ask your doctor how often you need to be tested.

Other possible tests

It may be hard to tell what type of diabetes you have. If so, your doctor may do a C-peptide test or test for autoantibodies to diagnose type 1 diabetes or a slowly developing form of type 1 diabetes called latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA). Some rare forms of diabetes are caused by a genetic problem. You may need genetic testing to diagnose them. This includes maturity onset diabetes of the young (MODY). There are many types of MODY, depending on the gene that is affected.


References

Citations

  1. American Diabetes Association (2023). Standards of medical care in diabetes—2023. Diabetes Care, 46(Suppl 1): S1–S280. Accessed March 15, 2023.

Credits for Criteria for Diagnosing Diabetes

Current as of: October 2, 2023

Author: Healthwise Staff (https://www.healthwise.org/specialpages/legal/abouthw/en)
Clinical Review Board (https://www.healthwise.org/specialpages/legal/abouthw/en)
All Healthwise education is reviewed by a team that includes physicians, nurses, advanced practitioners, registered dieticians, and other healthcare professionals.


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