🍭 Am I Prediabetic?
For everyone · 2 markers · $17.10
with code CAMERON $19.00
Family history of diabetes, expanding waistline, energy crashes after meals, or a fasting glucose that's crept into the 90s.
🩸 Order this exact panel — 10% off
All 2 markers load into your cart in one click. No doctor's visit, drawn at any Quest location in the US, results by email in about two weeks. Code CAMERON applies automatically.
Add all 2 markers — $17.10 → Open the full Bloodwork Vault →Why this panel
Standard screening uses HbA1c alone and finds the problem roughly a decade after it starts. Adding fasting insulin for $10 more catches the reversible phase.
What this panel can settle, and by what logic
Two markers, $19, and exactly one discrimination — but it is the discrimination the standard screen misses.
HbA1c (Hemoglobin A1c) tells you what your blood sugar has been. Fasting Insulin tells you what it cost to keep it there. HbA1c integrates glycemia over roughly 2 to 3 months Chen 2022, so it reports the outcome. Insulin reports the effort. For years those two diverge: the pancreas raises output, glucose holds steady, and a screen built only on HbA1c returns 5.4% and says nothing is happening Krhač 2019.
So the pairing settles one question: is this glucose normal because the system is healthy, or normal because it is working hard? An HbA1c of 5.4% with an insulin of 3 µIU/mL and an HbA1c of 5.4% with an insulin of 17 µIU/mL are the same screening result and opposite futures. Nothing else on this site answers that for $19.
What it cannot settle, and what would
It contains no fasting glucose, so it cannot produce a HOMA-IR. That calculation is fasting glucose multiplied by fasting insulin, divided by a constant, and HbA1c (Hemoglobin A1c) cannot substitute for the glucose term — an average over months is not a concurrent measurement Chen 2022. If you want the index, add a Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (CMP) for $9 and take the glucose from it. Read on its own, the insulin value here is still interpretable; the ratio is not.
It cannot diagnose anything. A single HbA1c in the prediabetes band needs a second confirming sample, and the value itself depends on red cell lifespan and globin chain structure as well as on glucose Chen 2022. Anemia, recent blood loss, a hemoglobin variant and pregnancy all shift it in ways that have nothing to do with your metabolism.
It cannot see what happens after you eat. Both markers here are fasting or averaged, and glycemic variability separates prediabetes from health in nondiabetic adults on continuous monitoring Kashiwagi 2023 at a point where an average has not moved.
And it says nothing about the company insulin resistance keeps. No lipids, no liver enzymes, no kidney function, no Uric Acid — all of which travel with this and all of which are $9 to $18 more.
Draw conditions that decide whether the money is wasted
One of these two markers can be ruined and one cannot, and knowing which is which is most of the value of this page.
- Fasting Insulin needs a true 9 to 12 hour fast. Water only. Milk in coffee is carbohydrate and protein, and both raise insulin within minutes Krhač 2019. A fed insulin is not a slightly high result, it is a different measurement, and it is the half of this $19 you actually came for.
- Reject a hemolyzed sample. Insulin is degraded by an enzyme inside red cells, and hemolysis is a recognized preanalytical interference on immunoassays Caruso 2020. It biases insulin down, which is the direction nobody questions.
- HbA1c (Hemoglobin A1c) does not need a fast at all. It cannot be improved by 3 days of good behavior either, which is precisely why it belongs next to a marker that can Chen 2022.
- Do not draw within a few weeks of donating blood or of any bleeding. Younger red cells have had less time to glycate, so the HbA1c reads low and the reassurance is an artifact Chen 2022.
How you would know it answered your question, and what each pattern means next
Four results and what each one is worth spending on next.
- HbA1c (Hemoglobin A1c) under 5.7% with Fasting Insulin above 8 to 10 µIU/mL: the finding this exists to catch, and the most reversible state on this site. Retest the insulin at 12 weeks; the HbA1c will not have moved yet and is not the marker to watch Krhač 2019.
- HbA1c 5.7 to 6.4%: confirm on a second sample before accepting it, and check a Complete Blood Count (CBC) with Differential if it is borderline, because anemia and hemoglobin variants move it in both directions Chen 2022.
- HbA1c 6.5% or above: a doctor, not a retest.
- Both normal and the symptoms are real: two markers have done what two markers can. The excursion after meals is the remaining question and it needs a sensor Kashiwagi 2023; the company insulin resistance keeps is the other, and that is a wider panel rather than a repeat of this one in 3 months.
Sources read for these sections
- Chen Z, et al. Interpretation of HbA1c lies at the intersection of analytical methodology, clinical biochemistry and hematology (Review). Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine 2022 · PMID 36382101
- Kashiwagi K, et al. Assessment of glycemic variability and lifestyle behaviors in healthy nondiabetic individuals according to the categories of body mass index. PLoS One 2023 · PMID 37792730
- Krhač M, Lovrenčić MV. Update on biomarkers of glycemic control. World Journal of Diabetes 2019 · PMID 30697366
- Caruso B, et al. Causes of Preanalytical Interferences on Laboratory Immunoassays - A Critical Review. EJIFCC 2020 · PMID 32256291
The 2 markers — and why each one is here
What this panel is ordered to decide
A panel is a set of numbers until it settles something. These are the decisions this one feeds — each links the pathway it belongs to, what that pathway claims, and what its test list is read for.
HbA1c averages three months and can look fine while post-meal spikes do real damage. Fructosamine covers two to three weeks, which catches recent change that HbA1c hasn't absorbed yet.
Related panels
A panel gives you numbers. Skool is where they get read — 103 marker breakdowns with the optimal range rather than just the lab range, 42 evidence-graded protocols, and me answering questions daily. $10/mo, cancel anytime.
Join Skool — $10/mo →Frequently asked questions
2 markers: HbA1c (Hemoglobin A1c), Insulin (Fasting).
$19.00 before discount, $17.10 with code CAMERON applied automatically. Individual markers add a one-time $10 draw fee. Ordered through Marek Diagnostics and drawn at any Quest Diagnostics location in the US.
No. These are ordered direct-to-consumer through Marek Diagnostics — you order online, walk into a Quest location, and results are emailed to you in about two weeks. No physician visit or insurance required. Not available in NY, NJ or RI.
Fast 9–12 hours — water only, and that means no coffee with milk.
HbA1c 5.7–6.4% is prediabetes, 6.5%+ is diabetes and needs a doctor. But the more useful early signal is a rising fasting insulin with a normal glucose — that's the compensating phase, and it's the reversible one.
Where this goes next
The pages here are the frameworks. The protocols — the dosing, the order to correct things in, the week-by-week schedule and what to retest — are inside Skool.