TAG – Total Available Glucose

Today I was reading a blog post by Amy Tenderich over at Diabetes Mine called, Betting Our Lives on Guesses.

I made a comment as follows:

Lately I’ve been studying TAG (Total Available Glucose) of not only carbs, but protein and fat too. It’s a much better and more accurate way of bolusing for T1 than just counting carbs. I have a pump, so I do extended boluses for all but small meals and snacks. That seems to work better too.

The one thing that also drives me crazy is the inaccuracy of meters. Thank heavens we have them, but really, by now they could be much more accurate. The other one is that I wonder sometimes how some manufacturers get to their carb counts on food packs. I’m sure sometimes they’re just guessing.

TAG is a system that takes into account not only the carbs in foods but also the available glucose of protein (about 58%) and fats (about 10%) and working out boluses on that.

Not that boluses are inaccurate only because you’re not doing TAG. There’s so much more to take into account: fighting an infection, inflammation, pain, stress, weather, hormones and a whole lot more. It makes looking after diabetes, once thought of as a science, more of an art-form at times.

There’s a great discussion over at TuDiabetes. It started off about doing combo/extended boluses on a pump and evolved into a discussion about TAG. Read more about the posts in “Dual Wave Bolus”

Even if you don’t have an insulin pump, it’s well worth the read.