c peptide test

[jigyasa]

i recently had my c peptide test .the results are evn worse ,i.e., 0.10! earlier i hd this test results ere 0.30 when my diabetes was detectd in 2008! can my pancreas reactivate now? what does this result show?
i had this test aftr 10 hrs of fasting n dt 2 frm a difrnt lab. evn d refernc range is different in the 2 results! plz suggst somthng! realy disappointd!

 

[RussG]

Hi jigyasa,

Unfortunately nobody here can tell you what the test results mean - have you had chance to discuss this with your medical team? What did they say?

A worsening c-peptide result would probably suggest that your body is producing less insulin as the beta cells are dying off. That's normal for T1 diabetes. If you've got T1 and are on insulin (as your profile suggests) then your pancreas is really not going to 'reactivate'. T1 is an autoimmune condition where the body attacks the pancreas cells that produce insulin.

Sometimes with people with latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA, sometimes called T1.5) can retain some pancreas function for a while after taking insulin. Your pancreas has a rest and can produce some more of its own insulin. However this is only a temporary thing as far as I know and all people with LADA end up on insulin eventually.

However I'm sure there are also lots of other factors that could influence the test. What's your concern about it?

 

[Pneu]

c-peptide tests are not hugely accurate and all they can tell you is... you aren't producing insulin, you are producing normal amounts of insulin or your are producing too much insulin.

For both results you should have got a reference range as each lab will have a slightly different 'normal' range depending on the technique they use and therefore you can not directly compare the results...

In general the following can be applied to the results, however you should always discuss these results with your HCP..

Very Low C-Peptide: Means that your insulin producing cells are dead or dying, it is normally an indication of type 1 diabetes, although long term poorly controlled type 2 diabetics can also have enough damage to fall into this category..

High Fasting C-Peptide: Means you are making a lot of insulin but have significant insulin resistance, for these type 2 individuals a reduced carbohydrate diet is often recommended as a good way of gaining normal blood sugars.

There are suggestion's that well controlled t1 diabetics can sometimes see an increase in c-peptide levels... suggesting some sort of 'regeneration' but I am yet to see a study where these increases are significant or outside the range of normal test in-accuracies.. unfortunately at present t1 diabetes is incurable.