Finger Prick Test: At Home Cholesterol Testing Kit Accuracy

Question: How accurate are finger prick tests that are offered at health exhibitions, shops or fairs? What about at-home cholesterol testing kits? Who would use these tests?

Finger Prick Test for Cholesterol

Free testing offered at health exhibitions, shops and fairs is less certain. Nobody is sure about finger prick test accuracy. And there is no means to check their accuracy or to determine that the equipment used for the tests is of good quality and totally upgraded. But one can rely on well equipped medical laboratories and proper hospitals for accuracy. There is absolutely no problem to undergo the tests at health exhibitions and other places, but one shouldn’t rely on the results.

Irrespective of whether the results are low, high or in between one shouldn’t consider them as the only measurement of one’s cholesterol.

At Home Cholesterol Testing Kit Accuracy

There is also doubt about the accuracy of home testing kits for cholesterol. They should not be considered as the only source of information about cholesterol and most doctors consider the interpretations and validity of at-home tests as open to serious debate.

Cholesterol tests need not be done often or quickly. People may use the at-home kit to find if they have high cholesterol, similar to the one at the fair.

Secondly if they are trying to reduce their cholesterol with drugs, weight loss or diet, out of curiosity they may use it between visits to the surgery so as to know how they are doing.

These tests use very little blood which reacts with chemically impregnated filter paper. The cholesterol is converted to Hydrogen Peroxide by the chemical present in the paper. More Hydrogen Peroxide is produced in presence of more cholesterol. The filter paper gets soaked in Hydrogen peroxide and the cholesterol reading is obtained depending on how far the Hydrogen peroxide has been drawn on the paper. A scale present alongside the paper shows the reading. In these tests you can even put too much of blood and still obtain accurate readings, as excess blood is squeezed off. But too little blood will give a faulty low reading.

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