Hi all,
So I’ve noticed after a couple of weeks being optimally medicated with levothyroxine that my dawn phenomenon seems to have just disappeared and insulin resistance massively improved. Like, overnight.
Within 20 minutes of taking my morning pill the glucose readings stop rising to 6.5 and decrease back to in the 5s after another 20 minutes or so. I was really curious so had the same breakfast the next day but before my pills and up of 8.5 taking 3 hours to come back down.
Is lack of thyroxine really the cause of the insulin resistance? My curiosity found these papers that suggest t3 is needed to activate the glucose transporters in cell membranes so that they can work with insulin to uptake glucose from the blood.
https://academic.oup.com/endo/article/138/3/1204/2988169
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9048628/
I also found along the way, some studies that hypothyroidism leads to longer turnover of red blood cells, falsely increasing hba1c. It would make sense for me, why when my bloods are averaging 5.5mmol/l (which should be hba1c of 37) I’m still reading hba1c of 43.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC5240076/
https://www.thyroid.org/patient-thyroid-information/ct-for-patients/february-2016/vol-9-issue-2-p-6/
Anyway, I thought it was interesting to share! Maybe it has been the mechanism for my raised hba1c, maybe not. Anyone else with marked change in hba1c/ insulin resistance with thyroid hormones?
So I’ve noticed after a couple of weeks being optimally medicated with levothyroxine that my dawn phenomenon seems to have just disappeared and insulin resistance massively improved. Like, overnight.
Within 20 minutes of taking my morning pill the glucose readings stop rising to 6.5 and decrease back to in the 5s after another 20 minutes or so. I was really curious so had the same breakfast the next day but before my pills and up of 8.5 taking 3 hours to come back down.
Is lack of thyroxine really the cause of the insulin resistance? My curiosity found these papers that suggest t3 is needed to activate the glucose transporters in cell membranes so that they can work with insulin to uptake glucose from the blood.
https://academic.oup.com/endo/article/138/3/1204/2988169
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9048628/
I also found along the way, some studies that hypothyroidism leads to longer turnover of red blood cells, falsely increasing hba1c. It would make sense for me, why when my bloods are averaging 5.5mmol/l (which should be hba1c of 37) I’m still reading hba1c of 43.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC5240076/
https://www.thyroid.org/patient-thyroid-information/ct-for-patients/february-2016/vol-9-issue-2-p-6/
Anyway, I thought it was interesting to share! Maybe it has been the mechanism for my raised hba1c, maybe not. Anyone else with marked change in hba1c/ insulin resistance with thyroid hormones?