title: Normal blood-glucose concentration which range for what?
abstract: Two definitions of normality ("isolated" or "correlated") are considered. The boundaries of "isolated" normality were determined by a statistical procedure, whereas the "correlated" approach was related to a clinical or predictive definition. In the latter case, the biological variations were considered abnormal if they implied a hazard with some significant future ailment as a risk factor. In this pragmatic approach, the upper limit of normal/abnormal variations is the point beyond which medical strategy is related to the most expected benefit when applied to a definite population or to an individual patient. The capacity of a diagnostic test to discriminate between patients with a defined risk and those without risk depends strictly on the value of the parameter chosen. In medical care for the prevention of vascular complications in diabetic patients or with foetal risks in pregnant women, the limits of the so-called normal range of glycaemia and other parameters should be determined according to the objective of the preventive and/or therapeutic measures to be prescribed.
authors.affiliation: Faculté de Médecine de Tours.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Grenier
mesh_terms: D001786:Blood Glucose / Q000378:metabolism*; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000097:blood* / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011247:Pregnancy; D011254:Pregnancy in Diabetics / Q000097:blood; D015995:Prevalence; D012016:Reference Values; D012307:Risk Factors; D013223:Statistics as Topic
chemical_list: D001786:Blood Glucose