The #1 Lab Value I Want You To Demand At Your Next Doctor’s Visit

In fact, this concept is so pervasive in health and wellness that the subject “autophagy,” in my New York Times bestselling book, Glow15, depends on having tight control of insulin. In Glow15, I walk you through a series of simple ways to activate your autophagy – your cellular detox mechanism that keeps you looking and feeling young. In order for autophagy to be activated, however, insulin levels need to be low. In my 15-day program, you’ll receive the most current science on how to eat and when to eat to regulate insulin and get your autophagy going.  What I love about this program is that it’s not a quick, fad diet but a launch point into a way of living to keep you healthy for the rest of your life. Disease doesn’t happen overnight. It occurs as a reaction to the countless decisions we make regarding our diet and lifestyle day in and day out.

Likewise, insulin resistance does not happen overnight. In fact, it happens over many years largely due to a diet high in processed foods that are rich in simple carbohydrates and sugar. Other factors such as obesity, a sedentary lifestyle, chronic stress and a family history of diabetes, exposure to toxins in your environment, and rampant inflammation contribute to insulin resistance. Insulin resistance occurs after your pancreas has been pumping out loads of insulin over a long period of time to normalize blood glucose levels and eventually reaches a threshold where it can’t keep up with the demand. It’s at this point that your cells become resistant. Insulin knocks but nobody answers, and this deteriorates your health.

High insulin levels and insulin resistance are at the root of many chronic diseases in modern-day society such as heart disease, obesity, dementia, cancer, mood conditions and more. The problem is that most symptoms of insulin resistance such as increased inflammation, sugar and carb cravings, increased visceral (mid-section) fat, feeling fatigued after meals, high triglycerides and high blood pressure only become apparent once you’ve already reached a higher level of insulin resistance.

Testing your fasting insulin can give you the power to stop the process of insulin resistance in its tracks.

Request This Test

This is what to do: request a fasting insulin test from your doctor along with several other key labs. This will provide a valuable tool so you have a true snapshot of your metabolic health. Fasting insulin should be less than 5 uIU/mL, and later in this article, you’ll learn the ranges for insulin resistance, pre-diabetes and diabetes.

The thing is, most medical doctors are in the habit of measuring only fasting blood glucose, which in many cases can present as perfectly normal even if fasting insulin is high. If the result is normal, you are sent home thinking your health is in tip-top shape, when really you could be on your way to insulin resistance.

It’s actually quite common for glucose levels to be completely in range while insulin is quite high. Sadly, insulin resistance is almost always diagnosed way too late in the game, but this doesn’t have to be the case. If you have insulin resistance, that usually means your insulin levels have been high for a very long time. By testing fasting insulin, you have the opportunity to catch this disease before it progresses to something much more serious.

Other key markers that can give you important information as to how metabolically healthy you are include:

• post-prandial (post-meal) blood glucose
• hemoglobin A1c
• LDL to HDL cholesterol ratio
• LDL particle size
• vitamin D
• uric acid
• serum ferritin
• body fat percentage
• waist-to-hip ratio

Keeping a close eye on all of these potential red flags of insulin resistance developing is critical for health and disease prevention.

Why Do Doctor’s Miss Insulin Resistance?

The current standard-of-care testing doesn’t usually move outside the bounds of fasting glucose and maybe hemoglobin A1c, which are both important pieces of the puzzle but do not provide the complete picture. The A1c blood test looks at your average blood sugar levels for the past three months by measuring the percentage of red blood cells (hemoglobin) that are coated with sugar (glycated). While this test has its imperfections, it can be an important predictor of your potential risk for diabetes and other metabolic issues.

However, what is so misunderstood is that fasting glucose only starts to rise after long periods of the pancreas producing and releasing huge amounts of insulin. Each time the pancreas secretes insulin, it brings high blood sugars down in order to protect you from high blood sugar levels, which is very dangerous for health. Chronically elevated blood glucose levels can lead to an increased risk of heart disease and stroke, nerve and kidney damage, skin problems, decreased eye health and more. Thankfully insulin is very good at doing its job — it is constantly working in overdrive to lower elevated blood sugar levels and prevent these problems.

After a long period of time with elevated blood glucose, the pancreas can either slowly burn out its insulin production and/or your cells can become desensitized to insulin. Beta cells are pancreatic cells that hold the huge responsibility of producing and secreting insulin in response to blood sugar spikes. A long-term increased demand for insulin leaves the beta cells exhausted and leads to dysfunction. As the body becomes insulin resistant, blood sugars begin to rise since the cells are no longer sensitive to insulin and won’t allow sugar to enter. As the sugars get locked out, fasting glucose rises, and this is when your doctor likely sounds the alarm.

The tricky part is that there are often no obvious symptoms telling you that you are insulin resistant until it’s too late. Aside from insulin resistance showing up in blood work, other symptoms might be increased thirst and hunger, feeling tired and still hungry after meals or frequent infections. Paying attention to other signs of metabolic dysfunction that can present themselves earlier is important; such as constant cravings for carbs and sugars, fatigue, an inability to lose weight even with a healthy diet, excess body fat around the waist, abnormal cholesterol readings and increased blood pressure, among others.