Hi everyone,
I’ve heard several times that Insulin resitance can be quite volatile, it may even fluctuate depending on how well you slept the night before…So, I was wondering if it was a good idea to test for insulin resistance (HOMA IR) when you are, like me, following a fairly low carb diet or would it be better to test after a few high carb days? Would it make a difference?
Thank you!
I don’t think anyone knows, because no one knows what happens to either glucose or insulin over time. My “fasting” insulin (about 10-12 hours fasting) has varied from 3.8 to 33.0 for instance. I have a theory that the distance between when I last ate (not necessarily WHAT I ate) and when I get the test makes a difference (higher insulin if the window is smaller). But I haven’t been able to test this theory.
Why test after eating carbohydrates? I’m not clear on the logic of this.
My understanding is that the formula is intended to operate on fasting values of serum glucose and serum insulin. It comes in different versions, depending on the units of measurement.
If you want a low HOMA-IR score, you want both glucose and insulin to be as low as possible. If you eat carbohydrate beforehand, I suspect that will increase the score, no?
I sounds like to me and correct me if I’m wrong, that you are trying to skew the results to get a favorable outcome.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to test as you are normally so that you get a fairly accurate baseline? Otherwise the test results couldn’t reflect your normal state.
I apologise for the lack of clarity. Let me rephrase my question.
I’ve been on low carb for 6 weeks and I would like to know wether I was, to some degree, insulin resistant BEFORE that period (when I was eating a lot more carbs).
I imagine that being on a low carb diet improves my insulin sensitivity but I don’t want the HOMA IR results to be skewed by the fact that I’m now consuming fewer carbs and producing less insulin now that I’m on low carb.
So basically, if I was insulin resistant before Keto, will it still show in the HOMA IR test after 6 weeks on Keto?
Thanks!!
What is your fasting insulin? If you were insulin-resistant six weeks ago, you are still insulin-resistant now; this is something that doesn’t get reversed instantaneously. It probably will take at least a year or two. While insulin-resistance and hyperinsulinaemia are pretty much synonymous terms, the curve of the insulin response is as important as the absolute value. Even when we lower the carbs, the insulin response to the carbs we do eat is higher and takes longer to come down than would be the case with someone who was insulin-sensitive.
The short answer is Yes. The number might be a bit lower now than it would have been six weeks ago, but not by much. As mentioned, it takes a while to reverse insulin-resistance.
Remember also that insulin-resistance is not one thing; it is a composite of the responses of various different cells to the flood of insulin resulting from a high-carb diet. Too much insulin causes them to reduce their number of insulin receptors in self-defence, and it takes them quite some time to trust that the low-insulin milieu is going to last. Just as it took us years to eat our way into trouble, it can take a long time to eat our way back out of trouble.
In other words, you can’t go back and re-engineer a baseline, but the result you’re going to get now won’t be that far off.