IF question as it relates to lowering blood sugar and an introduction to me

roarshack

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Hello, new member here. First post. I'm looking to get some information on intermittent fasting. Specifically whether or not we see results in decreased A1C if you don't follow the 16 hour time period, but a looser 14 hour fast. Let me share a little bit about myself and my fasting routine to help you understand what I mean...

I was diagnosed with pre diabetes a couple years ago now. Looking at some labs I found from years before I was diagnosed, that showed my A1C was in the pre diabetic range. That was 12 years ago, so about 10 years before being diagnosed as pre diabetic....No one ever said anything to me about, no flags were raised and I went on eating how 25 year old males eat. I work out a lot, am otherwise healthy, but I never really limited myself to what I ate, never watched carbs (actually ate more due to working out) and I was always fine.

A couple years ago got that A1C checked as part of an overall blood panel and some endo was concerned. He said I have pre diabetes. Since then, I get regular blood work done, every 3-6 months, just to monitor. Here is the really weird thing...At times my A1C dips into the diabetic range, then goes back down into pre diabetic range for the next 3 month test. I don't take any medication, as personally I don't find it necessary, given my blood work will on occasion put me as a type 2 diabetic, and then bounce back down to pre diabetic on a follow up. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for this. My current endo doesn't feel the need for me to take meds either, although my prior one encouraged it.

Oddly, I also have increased creatinine levels (kidney). My doctor sent me to a kidney specialist who was mildly concerned so he had me take a kidney disease test and some others. Everything turned out fine with that. Ultimately the kidney doctor told me this: "We're all different. What's normal for one person, may not be normal for another. Just because I have higher creatinine levels, doesn't mean there is a medical problem." He said you're muscular, you work out, your body demands more production than the normal person. So, what I took from that is I can be different, my bloods may not necessarily always show "within range" but that doesn't make me "sick" or mean I have a "problem". So with that mindset combined with the fact my A1C sways but is usually in pre diabetic range, I don't feel the need to get to get on any medication and neither does my endo.

You might wonder what a typical "fasted" blood sugar self test looks like for me....That varies too. Sometimes it's in the 80s, sometimes in the 90s and sometimes 110ish. I've taken that "rice test" where you eat a cup of rice and check your blood sugar every hour for a few hours. The results of that were "normal"...In other words my blood sugar surged immediately after eating it, then slowly went down and after a few hours, was back to an acceptable level (don't recall the number but it was within "normal")

Ok, so all of that about me and my trek with pre diabetes. Now back to how I use IF.....I've been practicing IF for about a year and half now. Most days I practice a 14-16 hour fast (usually 16), every day is at least a 12 hour fast. Some days I "take off" and don't fast at all, but these days are rare. Overall, I haven't seen much (if any) improvement on lowering my A1C. I should have also said I follow a relatively low carb diet. Most days I hover around 100-150. Some days lower and other days higher. But nothing like what I used to consume (300). Two blood checks ago, it was one of those results that put me just barely in type 2 diabetes. I said to myself, let me try something....I stopped being so strict with everything I ate. I allowed myself more carbs, baked goods, some ice cream...Took a tropical vacation where I didn't really limit myself food wise and then a state side trip where I didn't limit myself either. I didn't eat like a pig or anything, but I wasn't saying no to any food I wanted. If I wanted it, I ate it...In moderation of course. My next blood work check on A1C-lowest it's been in about 13 months. Still in pre diabetic range, but lower than the last. I'm now back on the IF program and will await to see how my bloods turn out after the holidays (where I admittedly am already prepared to consume more sweets than I otherwise would)

THE QUESTION LOL: I know the leading authority in this matter, Jason Fung, suggests 16 hour fasts for men and 14 hour fasts for women. But I cannot find anything online about whether men have any positive results if they consistently fasted for say 14 hours, instead of 16. Also, I can't find anything that provides information as to whether or not simply following a 12 hour fast has an affect on dropping blood sugar. Can anyone point me to anything that proves or disproves whether there is a significant different in results between 14 hours and 16 hours fasting? Apologies for the long message. Feel free to comment with any advice or similar experiences as it relates to the A1C jumping back and forth!
 
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Alison Campbell

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Hi welcome to the forum

It was interesting reading your thread particularly that your glucuse tolerence (rice test) does not seem to match your HBA1C readings. If your average of the 3 month reaches diabetic levels, when is your blood sugar elevated? As we each have our indevidual problem carbs, I was wondering if you doctors have sent you for an oral glucose tolerence test.

I'm tagging @bulkbiker and @Mbaker as they have done a fair bit of fasting and may have some information on Dr Fung's protocols.
 

bulkbiker

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Hi @roarshack and welcome
Firstly I guess I should ask where you are located as diagnostic HbA1c levels can vary quite a bit.. Also could you share some of the levels you have been getting over the last few tests (or ideally all of them).
Your fasting blood sugar levels look reasonable depending on the accuracy of your meter (between 4.4 and 6.1mmol/l in UK metrics).
I Intermittent fast every day with a no breakfast protocol and eat sometimes just dinner other times early afternoon and dinner (usually about 7-8 pm). My fasting regime came about after hearing Dr Fung's advice too.
 
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Brunneria

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Can anyone point me to anything that proves or disproves whether there is a significant different in results between 14 hours and 16 hours fasting? Apologies for the long message. Feel free to comment with any advice or similar experiences as it relates to the A1C jumping back and forth!

Hi and welcome,

I doubt VERY much if you will find any study that divides people into such specific timeslots. It wouldn't be practical to conduct the study, and impossible to verify, unless the participants were held in a closed environment for a long period of time.

Your underlying question seems to be more about insulin resistance than about fasting timeslots.
By that, I mean that the way our bodies respond to fasting is hugely dependent on our ongoing insulin resistance - and of course that is affected by a lot more than just when we eat and when we fast. You are eating 100-150g of carbs daily (if I have understood your post correctly), so comparing your fasting experiences with someone who eats less than 50g carbs a day would be very difficult.

In addition, there will be a lot of other factors (sleep patterns, stress and exercise levels, whether your carb intake is high or low GI) which will all be affecting your insulin resistance too.

So would extending your daily fast by 2 hours make a difference to your HbA1c? Maybe.
You would have to try it and see.

But I think there are other things you could do that would make a much bigger difference - if you wanted to adopt them.
 

brassyblonde900

Well-Known Member
Messages
331
Type of diabetes
Type 2
The best protocol is what YOU can do.
When it comes to IF, my position is that there no use aiming for the ideal, if your rate of adherence to that ideal is 0% or lower.
If what you can do is 12hrs that is perfect for you.
It means that during those 12hrs, you are not ingesting any food which could by itself or in combination, cause your body to produce any insulin.
Your body then gets to take a break from surging your system with insulin thereby lowering your IR which helps to a large extent in the correction of the underlying metabolic dysregulation.

To me, going by what you have posted, cutting your carbs from your stated 150grams a day, will be more impactful in correcting the obvious metabolic dysregulation that is going on, much more than the hrs you dedicate to do IF
 

torchman2

Well-Known Member
Messages
75
Oddly, I also have increased creatinine levels (kidney). My doctor sent me to a kidney specialist who was mildly concerned so he had me take a kidney disease test and some others.

High creatinine can be a sing of thyroid issues. Would suggest you get a full thyroid panel (total T3, total T4, TSH, free t3/t4). Everything is linked, body "diseases" are created by the whole environment, and often you will get multiple issues from the same problematic inputs. LC or VLC, and fasting, can worsen thyroid and liver issues. Thyroid performance highly relates to glucose control.

.I stopped being so strict with everything I ate. I allowed myself more carbs, baked goods, some ice cream...Took a tropical vacation where I didn't really limit myself food wise and then a state side trip where I didn't limit myself either. I didn't eat like a pig or anything, but I wasn't saying no to any food I wanted. If I wanted it, I ate it...In moderation of course. My next blood work check on A1C-lowest it's been in about 13 months.

This should show you the way forward. From looking at posts on the forum, most people go straight from "I eat whatever I want, whenever I want" and then go as extreme as possible in the other direction. So they go from excessive calorie intake, possibly high alcohol intake, and days where they will eat 3000+ calories, with some days eating 1500 calories, and then move quickly to:

- reduced calories
- reduced carbs
- increased protein
- reduced alcohol
- consistent amount of food and timings
- increased light exercise

The carbs are just one part of it.

If regular, moderate meals worked for you, then try that approach. Eat smaller meals (less insulin required), with a good balance of fat, protein and carbs, and see if that works for you. Eat at the same time each day, and eat the same amount of calories (roughly) per day. If you eat more carbs, eat them in slower digesting form. Eg fruit instead of juice, roasted root veg instead of soda/ice cream. Slow release of glucose/fructose is much better than fast release, like a pastry with added sugar.
 

Mbaker

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4,339
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Hi @roadshack 16 hours will clearly be better than 14, but by how much in your case would require a personal trial and tests like what Dave Feldman does for understanding his cholesterol, i.e. extremely strict.

As you are muscular, you might want to get a fasting insulin test. I follow athletic low carb / keto methodologies and have noticed reports that A1C's can be elevated in otherwise healthy persons (some admittedly are high carb eaters). "We" take the A1C as the gold standard for diabetic pathology in most cases, but for example in the case of Dr Shawn Baker who technically has a pre-diabetic A1C his insulin is on the floor at 2.0, as are all his other metabolic syndrome markers for him and his CRP. The theory appears to be that some athletes have sugar in the blood almost as a priming mechanism for the bodies expected workload. I don't understand this but I can say my HbA1c has gone up despite my fbg going down by over a point and post prandial readings always below 5.6 and this has coincided with more workouts. I have tested to death even with the Libre to ensure no out of bound spikes. I may have some other confounders such as ethnicity and noise from low white cell counts.

Anyway it may be worth checking your fasting insulin, if Dr Baker is correct that would be interesting. Your low carb is relatively low compared to regular carb eaters, but I would suggest would be considered quite high by many on this site (including me).
 

roarshack

Member
Messages
11
Hi welcome to the forum

It was interesting reading your thread particularly that your glucuse tolerence (rice test) does not seem to match your HBA1C readings. If your average of the 3 month reaches diabetic levels, when is your blood sugar elevated? As we each have our indevidual problem carbs, I was wondering if you doctors have sent you for an oral glucose tolerence test.

I'm tagging @bulkbiker and @Mbaker as they have done a fair bit of fasting and may have some information on Dr Fung's protocols.

Hello! I have had the oral glucose test. The results were as follows: Going in fasted was 90. After 1 hour - 161. After 2 hours - 114. These numbers put me all within normal range according to the lab and my endo
 
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roarshack

Member
Messages
11
Hi @roadshack 16 hours will clearly be better than 14, but by how much in your case would require a personal trial and tests like what Dave Feldman does for understanding his cholesterol, i.e. extremely strict.

As you are muscular, you might want to get a fasting insulin test. I follow athletic low carb / keto methodologies and have noticed reports that A1C's can be elevated in otherwise healthy persons (some admittedly are high carb eaters). "We" take the A1C as the gold standard for diabetic pathology in most cases, but for example in the case of Dr Shawn Baker who technically has a pre-diabetic A1C his insulin is on the floor at 2.0, as are all his other metabolic syndrome markers for him and his CRP. The theory appears to be that some athletes have sugar in the blood almost as a priming mechanism for the bodies expected workload. I don't understand this but I can say my HbA1c has gone up despite my fbg going down by over a point and post prandial readings always below 5.6 and this has coincided with more workouts. I have tested to death even with the Libre to ensure no out of bound spikes. I may have some other confounders such as ethnicity and noise from low white cell counts.

Anyway it may be worth checking your fasting insulin, if Dr Baker is correct that would be interesting. Your low carb is relatively low compared to regular carb eaters, but I would suggest would be considered quite high by many on this site (including me).

Woke up to a bunch of stuff to reply to! I'll try to get to all of it. By fasting insulin check, I assume you mean my glucose in a fasted state (as in when I wake up).....I get fasted insulin checked when I do my A1C check. Additionally, I occasionally use the "one touch" verio flex self checker, from time to time. In all official labs as far as I can recall, my fasting glucose is always between somewhere in the 80s and the 90s. Just for purposes of this post, I just self checked it at home. I'm currently in hour 14 of my fast and my glucose was 96. Now with that said though, there have been times my home check has shown me at 120...But I've never come back with that in a lab. It can be 120 and then I check an hour later and it's 90. No clue why so irregular. I've been working out less these days, 3-4 days a week in most cases. But mostly I was doing 4 days a week minimum, and sometimes 7. I'm 5-9 and weigh 195.
 

roarshack

Member
Messages
11
High creatinine can be a sing of thyroid issues. Would suggest you get a full thyroid panel (total T3, total T4, TSH, free t3/t4). Everything is linked, body "diseases" are created by the whole environment, and often you will get multiple issues from the same problematic inputs. LC or VLC, and fasting, can worsen thyroid and liver issues. Thyroid performance highly relates to glucose control.



This should show you the way forward. From looking at posts on the forum, most people go straight from "I eat whatever I want, whenever I want" and then go as extreme as possible in the other direction. So they go from excessive calorie intake, possibly high alcohol intake, and days where they will eat 3000+ calories, with some days eating 1500 calories, and then move quickly to:

- reduced calories
- reduced carbs
- increased protein
- reduced alcohol
- consistent amount of food and timings
- increased light exercise

The carbs are just one part of it.

If regular, moderate meals worked for you, then try that approach. Eat smaller meals (less insulin required), with a good balance of fat, protein and carbs, and see if that works for you. Eat at the same time each day, and eat the same amount of calories (roughly) per day. If you eat more carbs, eat them in slower digesting form. Eg fruit instead of juice, roasted root veg instead of soda/ice cream. Slow release of glucose/fructose is much better than fast release, like a pastry with added sugar.

Good points. I forgot to mention I have hypo-thyroid. I take Synthroid daily. It's funny that you mention thyroid and fasting and how I can worsen these issues. I got my thyroid checked 9 months ago (so I was about 9 months into fasting) and it needed an increase in medication. Perhaps the two were connected.

I really like this philosophy as it is pretty much in line with my thoughts. I'm not using IF to lose weight or any of that other stuff. My sole purpose was to see if it would regulate and lower my A1C. For me, it hasn't at all. So I'm starting to wonder if it might be better for me to just maintain the eating habits I've formed during this time period of trying IF, but not worrying to so much about the fast time. I was eating 3,000 cals a day but still maintaining that 100 carbs-ish. I ate this way for about a year, not to gain weight, just to keep the muscle and weight I had. I'm the type that can easily lose some size and some weight if I cut my calories even slightly. Still had the irregular changes to the A1C though. I don't sit around eating sweets, or soda or baked goods, normally. Maybe it's time to get a full panel work up again...I'll likely do this when I'm do for my next A1C check, which will be in a few months to spring time.
 

roarshack

Member
Messages
11
Hi @roarshack and welcome
Firstly I guess I should ask where you are located as diagnostic HbA1c levels can vary quite a bit.. Also could you share some of the levels you have been getting over the last few tests (or ideally all of them).
Your fasting blood sugar levels look reasonable depending on the accuracy of your meter (between 4.4 and 6.1mmol/l in UK metrics).
I Intermittent fast every day with a no breakfast protocol and eat sometimes just dinner other times early afternoon and dinner (usually about 7-8 pm). My fasting regime came about after hearing Dr Fung's advice too.


Hi bulkbiker, I am in the USA. Coincidentally I do have a record of my A1C and fasted glucose for the last 2 years....You may notice they go from pretty much getting tested every 3 months to waiting longer. My endo told me he thought I was fine getting it every 6 months instead of 3.....Here you go....


A1C and Glucose levels over last 2 years


October 2016 - 6.3 and Glucose - 93 (this is the test that got my primary care doctor to be concerned and sent to endo)

December 2016 - 6.7 and Glucose - 97 (this test my old endo wanted to diagnose me diabetic so we re took and you can see the following result in January was considerably lower, so he didn't diagnose me with diabetes)

January 2017 - 5.9 and Glucose - 95

April 2017 - 5.7 and Glucose - 98

July 2017 - 5.9 and Glucose - 121

October 2017 - 6.1 and Glucose - 118

February 2018 - 5.9 and Glucose - 89

May 2018 - 6.5 and then 6.2 - 2 weeks later on a recheck - Glucose 103

August 2018 - 6.3, unknown fasted glucose

November 2018 - 5.7, unknown fasted glucose (this was my most recent test where I ate whatever I wanted and didn't worry about diet to see how the results would play out).
 

roarshack

Member
Messages
11
Hi and welcome,

I doubt VERY much if you will find any study that divides people into such specific timeslots. It wouldn't be practical to conduct the study, and impossible to verify, unless the participants were held in a closed environment for a long period of time.

Your underlying question seems to be more about insulin resistance than about fasting timeslots.
By that, I mean that the way our bodies respond to fasting is hugely dependent on our ongoing insulin resistance - and of course that is affected by a lot more than just when we eat and when we fast. You are eating 100-150g of carbs daily (if I have understood your post correctly), so comparing your fasting experiences with someone who eats less than 50g carbs a day would be very difficult.

In addition, there will be a lot of other factors (sleep patterns, stress and exercise levels, whether your carb intake is high or low GI) which will all be affecting your insulin resistance too.

So would extending your daily fast by 2 hours make a difference to your HbA1c? Maybe.
You would have to try it and see.

But I think there are other things you could do that would make a much bigger difference - if you wanted to adopt them.

Hi there Brunneria, I agree with you. I guess I was hoping someone would have experience with both at 16 and 14 hours and whether that extra 2 hours was really a factor. I suppose I don't understand why they say men should do 16 but women can have good results at 14. Either way, I don't hyper focus on it. I've been doing IF so long now, if I'm hungry and it's disturbing my sleep, I'll get up and eat. If I wake up and I'm on 13 hours fasting and I'm starving...I eat. I don't care so much as before because it's not showing me the results I was hoping for as it relates to lowering glucose and A1C. With that said, I very much enjoy making IF part of my lifestyle in general. It's not a bad thing. So 90% of the time, I am IF just because I want to at this point.
 
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torchman2

Well-Known Member
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75
Good points. I forgot to mention I have hypo-thyroid. I take Synthroid daily. It's funny that you mention thyroid and fasting and how I can worsen these issues. I got my thyroid checked 9 months ago (so I was about 9 months into fasting) and it needed an increase in medication. Perhaps the two were connected.

I really like this philosophy as it is pretty much in line with my thoughts. I'm not using IF to lose weight or any of that other stuff. My sole purpose was to see if it would regulate and lower my A1C. For me, it hasn't at all. So I'm starting to wonder if it might be better for me to just maintain the eating habits I've formed during this time period of trying IF, but not worrying to so much about the fast time. I was eating 3,000 cals a day but still maintaining that 100 carbs-ish. I ate this way for about a year, not to gain weight, just to keep the muscle and weight I had. I'm the type that can easily lose some size and some weight if I cut my calories even slightly. Still had the irregular changes to the A1C though. I don't sit around eating sweets, or soda or baked goods, normally. Maybe it's time to get a full panel work up again...I'll likely do this when I'm do for my next A1C check, which will be in a few months to spring time.

Synthroid is T4, which needs to be converted into T3, the active form of Thyroid, by the liver.

With diabetics, liver is already an issue, so conversion will not be as good.

Glucose is needed to convert T4 into T3 also. Glucose can be created by the liver from fats and protein, but is done so by stress hormones. Effectively the body is getting regular, small amounts of glucose all day by breaking down fat and protein. This is why the dawn phenomenon exists, because your liver converts sugar during the night. Longer, darker nights will lead to more burden on the liver.

You can mimic this slow release of glucose by having small, regular meals which contain good carbs. And then you don't get the stress hormones.

Fasting and reducing glucose will burden the liver, hence less T4 will be converted. Hence why you would need increased thyroid medication. BUT if conversion from T4 to T3 is already bad, adding more T4 will only worsen the problem. You could look into supplementing with T3, or improving the conversion of Synthroid into T3 hormone. Can you find your thyroid hormone panel results?
 

roarshack

Member
Messages
11
The best protocol is what YOU can do.
When it comes to IF, my position is that there no use aiming for the ideal, if your rate of adherence to that ideal is 0% or lower.
If what you can do is 12hrs that is perfect for you.
It means that during those 12hrs, you are not ingesting any food which could by itself or in combination, cause your body to produce any insulin.
Your body then gets to take a break from surging your system with insulin thereby lowering your IR which helps to a large extent in the correction of the underlying metabolic dysregulation.

To me, going by what you have posted, cutting your carbs from your stated 150grams a day, will be more impactful in correcting the obvious metabolic dysregulation that is going on, much more than the hrs you dedicate to do IF

Hi Brassyblonde, yup, I got all that. I can do 16 hours no problem most days. Some days I go 18, if I'm out and about and busy, believe it or not, I lose track of time and am not hungry. I've tried and been sucesfull at limiting my carbs to about 50. While I can do it, personally I don't feel it is an attainable goal. Certainly not on
Synthroid is T4, which needs to be converted into T3, the active form of Thyroid, by the liver.

With diabetics, liver is already an issue, so conversion will not be as good.

Glucose is needed to convert T4 into T3 also. Glucose can be created by the liver from fats and protein, but is done so by stress hormones. Effectively the body is getting regular, small amounts of glucose all day by breaking down fat and protein. This is why the dawn phenomenon exists, because your liver converts sugar during the night. Longer, darker nights will lead to more burden on the liver.

You can mimic this slow release of glucose by having small, regular meals which contain good carbs. And then you don't get the stress hormones.

Fasting and reducing glucose will burden the liver, hence less T4 will be converted. Hence why you would need increased thyroid medication. BUT if conversion from T4 to T3 is already bad, adding more T4 will only worsen the problem. You could look into supplementing with T3, or improving the conversion of Synthroid into T3 hormone. Can you find your thyroid hormone panel results?

Very interesting read....I misspoke. They. lowered my dosage of levothyroxine, not raised it. I do have a question maybe you can provide insight on. I like everything you said...It makes sense. But I've only been using IF for the last year and a half...I've had higher creatinine levels for as long as I've been going to the doctor for blood checks...So maybe the last 15 years.
 

torchman2

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Messages
75
Very interesting read....I misspoke. They. lowered my dosage of levothyroxine, not raised it. I do have a question maybe you can provide insight on. I like everything you said...It makes sense. But I've only been using IF for the last year and a half...I've had higher creatinine levels for as long as I've been going to the doctor for blood checks...So maybe the last 15 years.

Wasn't saying it was just from the IF, but that it may be suggestive of a long term thyroid issue, which is very common nowadays. Spending too much time indoors in artificial light, combined with western diet of far too much polyunsaturated fat, and meals of sandwiches and fries, would have been enough.

BTW, they may have lowered your T4 levothyroxine because less of it was getting converted to T3... meaning total T4 would build up, which is bad. If you have the numbers, you may see total T4 increasing
 

DCUKMod

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Synthroid is T4, which needs to be converted into T3, the active form of Thyroid, by the liver.

With diabetics, liver is already an issue, so conversion will not be as good.

Glucose is needed to convert T4 into T3 also. Glucose can be created by the liver from fats and protein, but is done so by stress hormones. Effectively the body is getting regular, small amounts of glucose all day by breaking down fat and protein. This is why the dawn phenomenon exists, because your liver converts sugar during the night. Longer, darker nights will lead to more burden on the liver.

You can mimic this slow release of glucose by having small, regular meals which contain good carbs. And then you don't get the stress hormones.

Fasting and reducing glucose will burden the liver, hence less T4 will be converted. Hence why you would need increased thyroid medication. BUT if conversion from T4 to T3 is already bad, adding more T4 will only worsen the problem. You could look into supplementing with T3, or improving the conversion of Synthroid into T3 hormone. Can you find your thyroid hormone panel results?

Torchman, would you please post links to the sourrce for your thoughts leading to your statement that T4>T3 conversion for diabetics will be poor.

A agree a material number of people with hypothyrroid will have issues converting T4>T3, but I haven't found anything stating that situation is worse for those with diabetes.

Thanks, in anticipation.
 

DCUKMod

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@roarshack , if you are going to the expense of running a thyroid panel, your bloods should be screened to assess TSH, T4, T3, FT4, FT3, Thyroglobulin and Thyroind Peroxidase. At the same time I would suggest a Inflamation Markers panel, and Vitamins panels, and finally Iron.

Unfortunately, the thyroid is so central to our whole metabolic state it can be far reaching when it goes a bit wrong.

There are severral specialist thyroid forums out there, a but like this one for diabetes. You might find some help on one of those to interpret your thyroid results.

In UK, I have found https://healthunlocked.com/thyroiduk to be robust, with a number of extremely experienced and lay experts posting.
 
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roarshack

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Perhaps the more pressing question here is does anyone have any idea WHY my A1C fluctuates the way it does? As of now I've just sort of adopted the reason that maybe I'm different than the "norm"....And for what it's worth, I feel strongly that the doctors in my country (USA) far too often turn to medicinal treatments. The first endo I saw wanted to officially diagnose me as type 2 and wanted me to go on metformin when that 6.7 result came up. I refused and asked him to re test. He took an in office test where he spun the blood around in some machine (acknowledging that wasn't the most accurate method) and it came back 6.1. I asked him to retest me via the lab. 2 weeks later I was a 5.9. Ever since that day I've consciously been aware of the food I am eating. It hasn't helped the fluctuation of results as far as I can tell. And apparently that consciousness diet combined with the IF hasn't helped steady it either.
 

torchman2

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Messages
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Torchman, would you please post links to the sourrce for your thoughts leading to your statement that T4>T3 conversion for diabetics will be poor.

A agree a material number of people with hypothyrroid will have issues converting T4>T3, but I haven't found anything stating that situation is worse for those with diabetes.

Thanks, in anticipation.

There are so many sources, just found these from a minute of googling.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6328820
"Diabetes decreased the conversion of T4 to T3 in several tissues, including the pituitary, "
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5529912/
--> this one is very good, useful to scan
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3783922/
"In our study we found a low T3 state with significantly increased fasting blood glucose, HbA1c and serum insulin in diabetics."
https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/102/2/434/2972080
"This study demonstrated that decreased FT3, FT3/FT4 ratios, and increased FT4 levels are independently related to a higher prevalence of T2DM in both males and females,"
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jtr/2011/439463/
"Reduced T3 levels have been observed in uncontrolled diabetic patients. This “low T3 state” could be explained by an impairment in peripheral conversion of T4 to T3 that normalizes with improvement in glycemic control. "

EDIT:
http://journal.diabetes.org/clinicaldiabetes/v18n12000/pg38.htm
"Typical changes include a low serum T3 due to impaired extrathyroidal T4-to-T3 conversion, a low serum T4 due to decreased protein binding, and an inappropriately low serum TSH concentration."
 
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Mbaker

Well-Known Member
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4,339
Type of diabetes
Type 2 (in remission!)
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Available fast foods in Supermarkets
Woke up to a bunch of stuff to reply to! I'll try to get to all of it. By fasting insulin check, I assume you mean my glucose in a fasted state (as in when I wake up).....I get fasted insulin checked when I do my A1C check. Additionally, I occasionally use the "one touch" verio flex self checker, from time to time. In all official labs as far as I can recall, my fasting glucose is always between somewhere in the 80s and the 90s. Just for purposes of this post, I just self checked it at home. I'm currently in hour 14 of my fast and my glucose was 96. Now with that said though, there have been times my home check has shown me at 120...But I've never come back with that in a lab. It can be 120 and then I check an hour later and it's 90. No clue why so irregular. I've been working out less these days, 3-4 days a week in most cases. But mostly I was doing 4 days a week minimum, and sometimes 7. I'm 5-9 and weigh 195.
We like to keep you busy. Fasting insulin is different to fast blood glucose wbich you are referring to. Just as a reminder your body has background insulin always present and hopefully low. Your pancreas when stimulated by carbs / sugar will secrete the hormone insulin which will attempt to place the excess glucose into your muscles and cells, if there is too much glucose in the blood the liver can store some and further excess can be turned into fat.

What you desire is a low amount of insulin present, as high insulin promotes fat and can be a root cause of many nasty's outside of the scope of your query. So getting back to my original post, if you have low fasting insulin you may be in a similar category to the athletes mentioned. You would have to get a private test for fasting insulin if you want to see where you are with this. Nuffield Health can do this test as an example.
 
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