Diabetes blood Test - Stress (steroid primed) glucose tolerance test:

This test is more important to detect prediabetes or latent diabetes. The logic behind this test is that if persons with a possibility of developing diabetes in future (especially those having a family history of the disease) are given, besides glucose, a steroid drug like cortisone (50 mg) or prednisone (10 mg) or triamcilone (8 mg), a physical state resembling diabetes develops; such a diabetes like state cannot be developed in healthy persons even with steroid drugs.

The procedure of this test is exactly similar to that of glucose tolerance test. After the person consumes 75 gms of glucose and the steroid drug (in above-mentioned amount), blood samples are periodically drawn from his body. If the blood-sugar is 1600 mg or more after one hour or 140 mg or more after two hours, the person may be considered to be in a prediabetic or latent-diabetes state and may develop frank diabetes in the future.