Forthe diagnosis of diabetes mellitus presence of glucose (sugar) in the urine is one of the most important early finding. In kidney, glucose along with other useful as well as harmful substance is filtered. In normal condition, essentially all of the glucose which is filtered is reabsorbed and sent back to blood. If you have high amount of glucose in blood (in case of diabetes mellitus) then, the kidney won’t able to reabsorb all. So, certain amount of glucose is seen in the urine and the condition is known as glycosuria. This is because, to absorb glucose in the kidney it needs special channels which transport glucose with sodium ions (sodium glucose co- transporter). There are fixed number of these channels and when the sugar levels reach the excessive limit these channels get saturated and glucose is leaked in the urine.
The renal (proximal tubule) can only reabsorb a limited amount of glucose between 160-180mg/dl in plasma beyond that it begins to excrete the glucose in urine. This point is called as renal threshold for glucose. This threshold value might be different in different individuals like it is less in case of children and pregnant women.
In the table below, there are the range of glucose level showing normal, pre-diabetes and diabetes condition. If you are in pre- diabetes stages, it’s time to observe the glucose in the urine. It’s time to modify your lifestyle to control your sugar level.
| Plasma glucose test | Normal | Prediabetes | Diabetes |
| Random | Below 200 mg/dl | N/A | 200 mg/dl or more |
| Fasting | Below 100 mg/dl | 100 to 125 mg/dl | 126 mg/dl or more |
| 2 hour post-prandial ( after eating) | Below 140 mg/dl | 140 to 199 mg/dl | 200 mg/dl or more |
IN THE LAB, GLUCOSE IN THE URINE CAN BE DETECTED BY DIFFERENT METHODS. URINE DIP STICK TEST IS ONE OF THE COMMONLY USED EASY METHOD. YOUR URINE TEST RESULT SHOWING 1+, 2+ AND SO ON.
What does 1+,2+ in urine sugar test means?
In general urine sugar level of 1+ means in your blood there is about 250mg/dl of sugar. Urine sugar level of 2+ means there is about 500mg/dl of sugar in your blood. Glucose urine level charts which shows other values are given below.
Glucose urine level chart:
Approximate correlation between dipstick designation and plasma concentration of glucose
| Urine dipstick designation | Approximate plasma concentration |
| trace | 100 mg/dL |
| 1+ | 250 mg/dL |
| 2+ | 500 mg/dL |
| 3+ | 1000 mg/dL |
| 4+ | 2000 mg/dL |
Therefore after reading this article, I am sure you can now interpret from your blood glucose level value with urine sugar level result.
Source: KOMCI
