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You can measure your own Insulin Resistance !

To be fair, Dr. Ede provides references to the published papers that she got the information from (i.e. she didn't invent this test or any of the other tests she lists). Also, she does not claim these are tests for diabetes, but rather insulin resistance.
 
Fleegle said:
I confess to being a bit confused.
I now have a number of 8.37.

Now I have a number - what is the range of numbers I am looking for?
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According to the website Cherry posted, for men anything over 8.82 indicates insulin resistance, or approaching insulin resistance. For women the figure is 8.73.

Sorry, I missed NoCarbs reply. I keep having to apologise on this thread.
 

Very interesting. I had a really good read of all the posts and links - including the links which were less positive. Not trying to be controversial but thinking out loud it didn't really seem to make complete sense, unless tri's are the biggest factor in IR.
Plonking it all in a spreadsheet I ran a macro to try different values going up and down to see what comes out. And maybe scientifically some of these values are not possible but - if you are male, have tri's of .87 then they could have a FBG of 8.5 (which would be diabetic) yet not have IR. Unless I have screwed up all the maths.
It does work much better if you have higher tri's - then you need to get pretty low BG to not have IR.

Your graphs do tell an interesting story. It does look like when you model the science on your figures it does match and I am a big fan of illustrating through a real world example. So perhaps it is just really unlikely anyone would have really low tri's and high FBG.

In any case. All really interesting and thank you for taking the time to post and explain and illustrate.
As a note - I didn't feel misled - I felt like you posted some information I could consume or ignore.
 
What did the normal range of 7.22 - 9.3 in your original post mean @CherryAA ? As has been pointed out the website seems to give a different figure.
 

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We all know the meaning of “Insulin Resistance”, right ?
How the T2Ds will jump on this we can also expect !
Did not recommending as Diabetes Test – Sorry, LOL
She listed some others, she did not invent anything
and I have not the time to contact each of the listed
and also to ask them, if they gave permission to be
listed for that purpose, therefore again just this ?

I would trust any Dr. In Endocrinology - Diabetology, but sorry not . . . .

By the NIH.Gov independent of any references listenings, it does not
exist any such Test for any kind of purposes not even to Test Aliens !!

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Mr_Pot said:
What did the normal range of 7.22 - 9.3 in your original post mean @CherryAA ? As has been pointed out the website seems to give a different figure.
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To arrive at the " normal range" - I took the normal range of blood sugars as appearing on my on blood sugar tests, and I took the " normal range" of triglycides from the same source and I applied the formula to those two sets of minimum and maximum figures.

The website itself just identified " cut off points for likelihood of diabetes - I wanted to see those cut off points in the context of potentially expected numbers.

This seemed to me to be reflecting the" normal range" of both of these things in a "Normal" population. We know that the normal population is now moving towards insulin resistance - given that the "Normal range " of fasting insulin is shown as 2-25 whereas those who have researched that suggest figure of 2-6 are optimal.
Similarly there are many commentators suggesting that triglycerides are at the "optimum " level when they are at their lowest as opposed to " within range" .

Thus it seems entirely reasonable to me that the low end of this particular range would be applying the formula to the two low numbers, and the high end of the range would be applying to the two high numbers.

It also seemed reasonable that the high number would be higher than the point at which the likelihood of becoming diabetic had been identified because we know insulin resistance comes into play well before diagnosis is actually identified.. Thus it seemed to me that the value of this particular calculation could be that it does indeed identify the disease earlier than actually waiting for Hab1C to increase . Bearing in mind that none of Hba1C, fasting insulin, OGTT or C-Peptide appears as part of the standard profile both fasting glucose and triglycerides do and as such there is an abundance of data on them over many years then it seemed to me to be worth exploring this particular avenue.

In my own case - the results are pretty clear that it is -That might be a total coincidence - (Though @bluetit figures tell the same story ) or alternatively that it MAY BE a mechanism for example to compare what happens when a person diagnosed with diabetes then adopts a Vegetarian, Paleo, Mediteranneam, VLC, or LCHF diet where that individual can see his results over many years based on data he already has.
 
I am a little surprised that you are taking such exception to this even being explored - if it has no merit, the results of those who do take a look will show no patterns at all and the concept can easily be laid to rest. I have no particular investment if its right or not- I simply reported my own figures.

Its the lack of exploration of alternative explanations that led to the low fat diet being adopted for years.....

Having met a doctor specialising in diabetes who did not know the first thing about diet :

Having a doctor myself, for whom my decision to adopt a low carb diet has come as a complete and continuing surprise;

Having a set of food guidelines which have been recommended/ approved by doctors for many years - which include a focus on carbs not fats: ,

Having seen the turn around in health that comes from adopting the change in diet -

At this point I would not actually " Trust" that anyone has the absolute answers. I will instead listen to what they all have to say and make my own mind up.
 

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You don’t know any Prof. in Endocrinology – Diabetology you could by
email ask Your Questions ?

Additionally I gave you the Idea where NIH to look for reliable info only !

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I guess the question is really if you look at the normal ranges for both blood glucose and triglycerides- are there people who have high one and low the other and vice versa or these things moving in tandem as my chart seems to signify .

As a complete layman, if triglycerides in the blood come from the conversion of carbs into body fat , and if insulin resistance comes from insulin trying to get rid of glucose arising from carb inputs into the body then intuitively triglycerides could be implicated in insulin resistance. People have been trying to make the link between heart disease and cholesterol for years and its always by the HDL or the LDL or the ratio between them - Ive read very little about the trigs.
 
Ch.R. said:
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You don’t know any Prof. in Endocrinology – Diabetology you could by
email ask Your Questions ?

Additionally I gave you the Idea where NIH to look for reliable info only !

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I am not interested in technical explanations of things from scientists or professors.

I have read dozens of explanations that saturated fats in food cause fats in the blood stream and ditto for cholesterol - all presumably emanating at some point from someone purporting to be providing reliable data which somehow or other must have ended up in the NIH database, otherwise lower carbs would already have been adopted as standard world wide.

Large scale testing inevitably involves making some basic assumptions which may or may not invalidate the tests at an N=1 level .

As an example Rapilose the OGTT solution used by doctors has a set of instructions
1) ensure that the patient has been taking a "normal" diet for three days - what is normal ?
2) fast for " at least 9 hours" - what about if one did it after 24 hours
3) the test takes no notice of the body size of the participant.

I am an accountant, I specialise in considering the bigger picture based on small samples rather than the other way round.

I am interested in real world patterns and N=1 data and and in particular my own n=1 data that I actually possess and what it might be telling me -

My own choice to move to LCHF was based on 1 single individual's results in a bigger study. She was the only one who had implemented a very low carb diet. I made the leap of faith that despite it not being identified as such, she was also the person in the tables which followed who had reduced Hba1C the most.

https://nutritionandmetabolism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1743-7075-6-21

Looking at those tables again I would also be prepare to take anther leap of faith that whilst participants had improved Hab1C as result of their lower carb diets SHE is also probably at the low end of the range for the triglycerides. ( which did improve on average as well)

Having made that leap of faith when I super-impose my own figures on those tables I am also at the same extreme beneficial result for the items they chart.

Unfortunately as is the way with nearly all of these studies , the trigs are being ignored as a data set, with the focus instead being on HDL/ LDL .

If others check and find similar or opposing patterns at the n=1 level then that is useful to me

To be informed about tests which I do not have and which I can no longer obtain that would be relevant to me if only I had had them done at any stage in the last 20 years is not of any practical benefit to me at this point as I determine how my own body reacts to the decision I have taken in the past and am about to take in the future.
 
I'll add mine to the mix as I seem to be something of an outlier

2009 (no diagnosis of anything) FBG 5.7/Trigs .82 gives me a number of 8.224 so apparently higher end but not yet IR
2014 (diagnosed pre-d) FBG 6.3/Trigs .45 gives me a number of 7.72 so lower than when not considered pre-d
2017 (low carb for 3 years) FBG 4.8/Trigs .36 gives me a number 7.23 so lower still

Could be because I'm pre-d & not yet type 2 I guess. Could be that my blood sugar issues are caused by something other than IR. Could be that I have genetically low trigs.

Can you make anything of it @CherryAA ?
 
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I for a favour told you NIH.Gov and here you have a Link for Low Carb
it may will blow your mind : https://www.google.com/search?q=NIH...x-b&gws_rd=cr&dcr=0&ei=CuOxWYj6GNi0jwOD6L-QAQ


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What?
 
Ch.R. said:
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I for a favour told you NIH.Gov and here you have a Link for Low Carb
it may will blow your mind : https://www.google.com/search?q=NIH...x-b&gws_rd=cr&dcr=0&ei=CuOxWYj6GNi0jwOD6L-QAQ


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I am really not sure of the point you are making in this post. My guess would be that nearly all of us who post here in any detail including me have done that particular search, hundreds of times and have extensively read numerous of the articles it reveals in the NIH Gov database and elsewhere. As such it is highly unlikely that any such search will now "blow my mind" . My mind got blown a year ago. You seem to becoming at this from an angle that presumes none of us know anything about the research into low carb or indeed looking at your other post - even some of the basics. That could not be further from the truth for some of us.
 
Ch.R. said:
.

I for a favour told you NIH.Gov and here you have a Link for Low Carb
it may will blow your mind : https://www.google.com/search?q=NIH...x-b&gws_rd=cr&dcr=0&ei=CuOxWYj6GNi0jwOD6L-QAQ


.
Click to expand...

You place a huge amount of "faith" and I use that word advisedly in an institution that publishes abstracts of studies without allowing free access to the actual study itself. Also you seem to claim it has some global authority rather than being a US based body. I'm afraid that you;re "faith" maybe misplaced. I prefer to read actual studies with detailed information about exactly what to look at rather than relying on abstracts.
A well formulated ketogenic diet is rarely studied because if it were who would make any money out of it? That is why we are here using our own personal experiences and sharing those.
 


Hi Safi,

I read your post without first looking at your signature.

Here is the thought process that went through my head ....
2009 - that looks pretty good
2014 - FBG 6.3 trigs 0.45 - that looks pretty healthy - I wonder why her doctor diagnosed her with diabetes?
2017 FBG 4.8 trigs .36 numbers better again that makes sense because now' she's gone low carb and that works to reduce both and this ratio - she's in good shape - I wonder what her hba1C is - I bet that's pretty very low because this person doesn't look particularly diabetic.

Then I looked at your signature and thought
" ah - SHE was definitely one of the lucky ones - her doctor ordered an OGTT at a very early stage in the process when her blood sugar response was slightly deranged . My doctor SHOULD have ordered one by 2011 if not earlier in order for it to have been at the same stage as you.

Then I looked at your Hba1C in 2014 and thought - wow - so Kraft ( which the OGTT seems to be a proxy for) does actually predict things far in advance of the point when it starts to manifest as a real problem given that this person only had an Hba1C of 31 at that time. I also thought - I wonder if Safi has the actual data for the interim results at 30m intervals for this test, or just the 2 hour figures

Finally I saw that the diagnosis in the first place was Pre - diabetic not diabetic .

The questions I would then be asking myself are - a) I wonder how old this person is - ? are you under about 40 ?
and b) I wonder it this person was very overweight when diagnosed - I would guess maybe 10 kg max ?

Then at the very end - current numbers - your figures look astonishingly good, the diet clearly works for you and if you stick with it as a way of life, you probably banished the evils of diabetes from your life - so good on you

The interesting question to me from your data would be - in terms of can LCHF diet CURE diabetes or just keep the symptoms at bay . i.e. Would an LCHF diet still show an abnormal response after two hours like you had back in 2014 ?

We saw from the Rapilose test that @bulkbiker did that his commitment to LCHF meant that even though his interim responses were still deranged, at the two hour mark, his performance was back in the non diabetic range ( i.e. better than yours in 2014 at the 2 hour mark) . So has your commitment to it resulted in a better response after two hours - which my guess would be - is probably yes - or has it kept your numbers within the kraft pattern 1 range at all times during the study- in which case does that constitute CURED diabetes?

My laymen's interpretation so don't assume I know the slightest thing about it ,- I don't I just like to try and see patterns in things. cheers Cherry
 
Interesting stuff but I have a couple of issues:

(1) Apart from first diagnosis none of my blood tests have been fasting. So I don't have FBG figures taken at the same time as my trigs. Finger pricks suggest thst FBG varies on a daily basis.

(2) I thought triglycerides were used to transport dietary fat from the gut to the liver.

About to rush about, so I will return later with links and stuff.
 
LittleGreyCat said:
(1) Apart from first diagnosis none of my blood tests have been fasting. So I don't have FBG figures taken at the same time as my trigs
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It is always wise to fast before a test that involves triglycerides, even if told not to. Trigs are very likely to be raised after eating because they are out and about in the bloodstream doing their job. NICE does say fasting isn't necessary, but that is to save surgery waiting lists as fasting tests are always done in the mornings, so without fasting they can be spread throughout the day. If you haven't been fasting, your trigs may be up and down on your tests over the years and not consistent. I fast for all mine so I can see if there is any deterioration or improvement. I do tell the lady taking the blood so she can change the labels, but she rarely bothers.
 
I too am sceptical of this test. Nice Try, but I think it is flawed.

Firstly, taking a statin will artificially reduce LDL. LDL is not actually measured in the normal blood test, but it is normally derived from the other lipid measurements, using rhe Friedwald Formula. It is an approximation, and is skewed by the presence of triglycerides. But Lowering LDL is not associated with a corresponding drop in IR in T2D. To get true LDL needs a full assay test in the lab, which is expensive, and normally only done to support research projects.
Edit to add clarification:
<<<<LDL Cholesterol is calculated using the Friedewald as follows:

LDL cholesterol = Total cholesterol – HDL cholesterol – Totaltriglyceride ÷ 2.19

The formula used is reasonably accurate providing totaltriglyceride levels are below 4.5 mmol/L, but unreliable whentriglycerides are high due to the effects of VLDL and IDL.>>>>>>

Are trigs an indication of the depth of IR? Trigs are the unmentionable bits left over after VLDL and LDL and HDL are deducted from TC, and generally comprise sLDL particles that cannot be hoovered up by HDL for recycling in the liver, or it is damaged LDL that HDL cannot recognise as ' not wanted'. Damage from smoking, free acid radicals, inflammation and disease. radiation etc all add to creating trigs which are in effect detritus. So there are external influences other than diet at play there. The formula you used is as pointed out, weighted by the trig value, so will be sensitive to other influences that you do not control and which may vary with time. So is it a useful test?

It may be of use simply on an (n=1) basis for getting a very crude handle on whether IR is being changed by some lifestyle changes, but will be a very personal thing and not used (as also pointed out) as a general purpose test for comparing the population. Thus is is not a 'recognised' technique for evaluating IR, and very difficult to work out what normal is, and also to say for certain what a change up or down means in connection with IR,

I believe that a home based OGTT style of test is more useful and there is another formula based on the timing and amplitude of the glucose spike following the necking of the standard glucose drink. This is sometimes used in lab research projects, but to be meaningful it still needs an insulin clamp test to establish the baseline insulin levels, and this is not yet available as a home procedure as far as I am aware, So again a home evaluation is an individual-specific check, but could be related to a national profile. This method is directly measuring a definite response to glucose only intake so is not affected by fat or protein delaying the action. Purely response to glucose. However, different labs and researchers have used different formulae, and there is no gold standard procedure established yet.
 
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The point of all this would seem to me to be that if " trigs" are the unmentionable left over bits of detritus, then understanding whether or not you are accumulating more bits of detritus would appear to be valuable. Currently all of the talk is about HDL, LDL, apoA apoB . and ratios. Trig - the unmentionable detritus which it appear fairly reliably go down on an LCHF diet barely get a look in so we have no clue if they go down more or less on any of the other types of diets mentioned or indeed any other of the types of fats chosen !

My point in looking at all this was merely to see if - in the absence of ANY of the tests which I now wish I had had done over the last 20 years - there was anything in my own baseline data - which I could compare then to now to see if I could derive any conclusions about ongoing health or my strategy . That does not replace needing to do home OGTT, getting fasting insulin or having APOB/ Apoa1 tests done from here on in I can never have a comparator for those.
 
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