What does a slightly low albumin level mean?
An albumin of 3 would not ring any alarms. There are plethora of reasons albumin can be low, ranging from serious to inconsequential. If you were in the hospital and we saw your labs come back with this, then we wouldn’t really think anything of it unless you were showing other symptoms. Just a heads up. Some will say that albumin can directly relate your nutritional status; however this is not true. The true test for this microalbumin (an albumin precursor protein). Also, a low albumin cannot tell you if you have albuminuria (macro- or micro-). I’m sure you have done this before since you have diabetes, but to test for albuminuria you need to test the amount of albumin in a urine sample.
