IR or NO I?

[Fleegle]

I wanted to tap into the experience and research people have done. I am a bit perplexed. I am looking at the ND research and it does not talk too much about IR other than clearing the liver of fat to improve it. Then the idea is to remove fat from Pancreas to restore Insulin production.

But I wondered about this. Firstly - how do you know if you have stopped producing enough insulin - which seems to be the circle of too much insulin, insulin resistance, burnt out pancreas.
Or whether you are producing plenty of the stuff - but have high IR?

If IR causes pancreatic burnout how does that end up fatty and need clearing out?

If you are diagnosed early - are you IR but your pancreas could just be working fine - how would you know?

I don't understand why the people on the trial, some of whom were taking insulin, are not just going to make the IR worse once they have normal insulin production.

A lot of questions - and not very well put but I cannot figure out myself how people know where they are?

 

[DavidGrahamJones]

how do you know if you have stopped producing enough insulin

You have a c-peptide test, if you're lucky your GP will OK it, or you pay for it yourself. Mine cost about £90 a few years back. Spire, private health people presently charging £159 https://privatebloodtests.co.uk/private-blood-test-for-insulin-c-peptide-in-blood.html. Could be worth investigating further for cheaper prices.

 

[Lamont D]

There is a presumption of many that diagnose diabetes that IR is always an important reason of why diabetes is caused.
By having higher than normal fasting blood glucose levels at a diabetic level usually means that IR is present.
Having excess insulin as well as glucose, gives your endocrine system the chance to store fat from these hormones as nature intended. Hence most T2s have a fatty liver and also kidney and liver function problems.
So the diabetes is treated by either diet or by medication.
The treatment for lowering blood levels is by using your source of insulin to work harder to combat the higher glucose levels.
So your insulin resistance increases.

By reducing your carbs dramatically, you lower the need for the extra insulin, so your pancreas doesn't need to work as much, the lower the circulating insulin, the less insulin resistance, the less insulin resistance, the lower your blood glucose levels come down.
Your body will burn off the fat because your source of energy is not the carbs you have stopped eating.
When you go below your fat threshold and you get your balance of carbs, protein and saturated fats for your system, your weight responds by either losing weight or finding the right weight for you.
You lose the excess insulin and glucose, no fat storage!
Getting your exercise right for you, wether it's just a walk or the longer and strenuous stuff is again, what your body requires.

You will find that if most T2s, reduce carbs, reduce plate size, and increases exercise, then insulin resistance will no longer push your levels up so high and the possibility of remission is possible, if you look after your general health.

However, there is always one, T2 can be caused by so many different reasons, that, only medication can get you some kind of control. It all depends on your beta cells.

If only doctors were persuaded to check insulin levels, when glucose levels seem to be out of balance or symptoms present, then even prediabetes could be prevented.
Hyperinsulinaemia is a high cause of prediabetes, diabetes and many of the symptoms that preclude insulin resistance and T2.

 

[DavidGrahamJones]

Your body will burn off the fat because your source of energy is not the carbs you have stopped eating.

I wish mine did!

 

[Brunneria]

I’m tagging in @bulkbiker because of his experience with the fasting insulin test

 

[bulkbiker]

Well I only had a fasting insulin test but I do think that insulin is where the problems mainly lie with Type 2 (obviously also Type 1 but in a different way). The best thing I can suggest is to have your fasting insulin tested and see where you are from there. I'm afraid you are very likely to have to have the test done in the private heath world as GP's and DN's either haven't heard of it (or are lying to me) or aren't allowed to prescribe it. It's not horrendously expensive but may well give you a more detailed insight into what your body is doing. From those results you can see where you need to go.
If you want to get one the cheapest I found was with Medi-checks..If you do go with them though I would heartily advise going to get the blood drawn "professionally" rather than using their finger prick (unless you produce fountains of blood from a finger prick). I thin it would have taken me a week to fill up their vial with finger prick blood. I'm going to try to get the phlebotomist to fill up the medichecks vial when I go for my unrequested cholesterol test in a week or so as I persuaded them to do another HbA1c along side it.

 

[bulkbiker]

You may be interested in this...
https://www.medichecks.com/diabetes-tests/insulin-resistance-test
although you could just get the fasting insulin and do a test from the blood for your own blood glucose and save £10.