Is it necessary to fast before a blood test?

Posted By Suborna Fermi Posted on Jun 15, 2023

People who have gone through blood tests before are well aware of the fact that fasting is suggested by the doctors as well as the pathology experts. Usually, 8-12 hours of fasting is suggested by medical experts before you appear for a test. In other words, it is necesary that you do not eat anything after your dinner and till the moment you are arriving from the test, and there are certain reasons behind it.

Although it is still not known to a huge number of common people, fasting is hugely necessary to make sure that your test results are accurate. In some cases, you are not even allowed to drink any kind of fluid except water before you appear for the test. There are a certain number of tests that will mandatorily require fasting and if you mistakenly eat anything before appearing for the test, you will probably not be allowed to appear for the test. Some of the tests that compulsorily require fasting are mentioned below for you.

Which tests require fasting?

• Low density lipoprotein level test
• High density lipoprotein level test
• Blood glucose test
• Cholesterol test
• Basic metabolic test panel
• Liver function test
• Triglycerides levels test

Why is it necessary to fast?

Although there are still so many of us who don’t know about it, there are so many kinds of minerals in the blood. For example, vitamins, carbohydrates, fat, proteins etc are some of the most mentionable minerales that remain in our blood. The main reason why the doctors may suggest you to fast is, once you eat any specific food or drink any particular fluid, it may cause a bit of an imbalance in the levels of those minerals, which can make it harder for the pathology experts to generate a test report with complete accuracy.

For example, if you are about to go for a blood sugar test and you have eaten any particular food item that can boost the sugar levels of your body, then the test will not help you determine the exact sugar levels in your body, it will only show the elevated levels, which is false. As we all know, false test reports can be truly dangerous for any person as it may misguide the medical experts, which may even be the reason for wrong treatments that may even be extremely dangerous or fatal for you. This is the reason why fasting is necessary before appearing for certain tests.

You may also consult advanced pathology labs like Thyrocare who are selling Thyrocare test packages all over the country. Anybody can easily choose any Thyrocare package including Thyrocare full body checkup packages after choosing the right package for them from the Thyrocare test price list. Consult them today to know more or get the best Thyrocare offers.