‘What is the average blood sugar my age’… First development of national reference standards

Blood sugar reference standard poster (provided by National Health Insurance Corporation) © News1

The National Health Insurance Corporation announced on the 22nd that it has developed the’Korean Blood Glucose Reference Standard’ in cooperation with the National Institute of Technology and Standards and the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science, and registered it as a national reference standard.

Reference standards refer to national statistics made for continuous use by increasing data accuracy and reliability. Although there was data gathering people’s blood sugar levels, it was the first time to develop a reference standard that improved accuracy by reflecting the error range of examination equipment.

The Health Insurance Corporation created a blood sugar reference standard using fasting blood sugar data collected through national health checkups. It can be viewed as the average fasting blood sugar level measured at the examination for each age group. Fasting blood sugar levels have been reported to be related to diabetes diagnosis and cause of death from diabetes.

The reference standard for blood sugar for Koreans can be downloaded from the National Health Insurance Service website (nhiss.nhis.or.kr).

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