Why you should not eat, drink coffee and smoke before taking the tests

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Laboratory studies provide a lot of information about a person's health. Taking into account the importance of tests for the diagnosis of the disease, it is necessary to take a particularly responsible approach to their submission. Although sometimes patients ignore even elementary rules of taking tests.

For example, many people know that it is necessary to donate blood on an empty stomach, but few remember the ban on chewing gum before going to the laboratory. Also, the result of the diagnosis can be affected by a cigarette smoked before entering the laboratory or excessive physical activity during evening training. Therefore, before taking any analysis, you should carefully read the recommendations and not take them formally.

Why can't you have breakfast?

Hundreds of processes in the body are interconnected and occur simultaneously. Therefore, such an accurate method of research as laboratory diagnostics assumes that the patient will follow certain recommendations, even if they seem meaningless to him. For example, when chewing gum, the brain thinks that food is entering the body and starts producing enzymes to break it down. The activator of some enzymes are hormones, so their level will also change. Thus, chewing gum can affect the results of biochemistry, hormone levels, and other tests.

That is why most tests are performed on an empty stomach. It is better not to eat anything 12 hours before coming to the laboratory. But you can't starve for longer either, as it can affect some studies, for example, lower glucose levels.

Food on the day before the test should be essentially “dietary”. It is better to eat low-fat food, use cereals or soups. Eating a large amount of meat (proteins) increases the concentration of ammonia and urea in the blood serum, and the amount of calcium salts in the urine.

A heavy dinner, eating fried food, sausages and smoked meats increases the fat content in the plasma. This increases the density of the biomaterial, causes turbidity of the serum, as a result of which the results will be distorted. It is better not to use “dyeing” products (beetroot and carrot), as they change the color of urine and blood serum. If a person consumes little salt or is on a salt-free diet, this changes the indicators of the aldosterone hormone.

You can only drink plain still water before the tests. In the morning, you should give up coffee and tea. Caffeine promotes the production of adrenaline, which will make this analysis unreliable, and increases the concentration of free fatty acids. Also, caffeine increases the resistance of the body to the action of insulin, and this will affect the determination of glucose. The day before the test, you should not drink alcohol, which affects the levels of lactate, uric acid, and triglycerides.

Smoking and exercise on the eve of tests

You should refrain from smoking at least one hour before taking the tests, because the maximum concentration of nicotine in the blood occurs 20-30 minutes after smoking a cigarette. Nicotine is the most dangerous in terms of distorting the results of tests, as it affects changes in the levels of many hormones. In addition, after smoking, the levels of erythrocytes, monocytes, eosinophils, and hemoglobin increase, but leukocyte values ​​decrease.

In the recommendations before taking the tests, it is often indicated that physical activity should be avoided. After all, during sports, hormone levels in the body significantly increase or, on the contrary, decrease. For example, after exercise, the indicators of sex hormones increase, and blood coagulation and the functional activity of erythrocytes are also activated. Some changes remain even for 12-24 hours. Therefore, it is better not to do sports in the evening before taking the tests. Before actually passing any analysis, it is better to spend 10-20 minutes in complete peace. It is not possible to take tests after a massage, as well as ultrasound or X-ray diagnostics.

In order to obtain correct results for many tests, it is necessary to comply with various conditions, for example, refusing to take certain drugs, keeping track of the days of the menstrual cycle for women, a strict diet within a few days. You should always clarify the rules of preparation for taking the tests and you can count on getting the correct result.