Seoul Asan Hospital study questions fasting rules for blood tests

A study conducted by Seoul Asan Hospital in South Korea suggests that the common eight-hour fasting requirement before blood tests may be unnecessary for most routine laboratory values. The research, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, analyzed over nine million laboratory results from 101,148 patients across 121 different types of tests.

The findings indicate that while most values remain stable regardless of fasting duration, certain specific markers are significantly affected by recent food intake. For patients who had eaten less than eight hours before testing, blood glucose levels were on average 10.8 percent higher, and triglycerides were 20.1 percent higher compared to those who fasted longer. Other notable differences included a 36.4 percent increase in the lipase enzyme and a 14.8 percent increase in gamma-glutamyltransferase (G-GTP).