Labs part 2: Insulin + A1c + CRP

This week we Baylee is bringing you part 2 of our understanding your labs series. This episode she is diving into fasting insulin, HbA1c and CRP and why these are important lab markers. 

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Just Ingredients 

Poppi 

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Transcript

0:23

Hello everyone. Welcome back to this week's episode of Mocktail Minutes. This is Bailey, and it's just me. It's just me. This week I was like, lemme wait for Brianna. No, it's just me. We're doing a solo episode, Brianna's Outta town, so I hope she's having a great time. But we are gonna do a part two of labs. I am drinking another poppy doing the poppy prebiotic soda. It's the cream soda. I, I don't think I've actually had this flavor, but it's good because it reminds me of like a root beer, flu about root beer taste. It's like a spicy ice cream, I guess you could say. I dunno, really like the cream cream soda for the poppy. So that is what I am sipping on today. And like I said, we're gonna dive into part two. I think we're gonna do like a three part lab series so that way you can really start to understand like what these numbers could mean. Now, another disclaimer, what I talk about in this episode or what we talk about in these episodes, all of'em really in general, these. For education purposes only. This is not to go diagnose yourself with diabetes or kidney disease or thyroid issues, nothing like that. This is just to kind of give you information so you feel more empowered to ask questions, and you just get a better understanding of, okay, what's going on here? So today in part two, we are gonna cover. Fasting insulin A1C and CRP. These are all markers we'd like to do in addition to the fasting glucose to kind of give us a better picture of what's going on, especially when we have blood sugar in question. So we talked a little bit about fasting glucose last time. Fasting glucose is just a little review. It's a direct measurement of the sugar in your blood after not eating. That's the fasting part. And standard range is gonna be like 70 to 99. Cre diabetes is considered 125. Diabetes is over 1 26. Optimal range is more like 70 to 90. And what it shows is if your body is maintaining blood sugar balance in the absence of food, elevated numbers can suggest like impaired insulin signaling maybe like liver over overproduction of glucose or maybe some pancreatic stress. So if fasting glucose is high, you would think about, okay, do we need to adjust carbohydrates? The timing of them, the types of them. It could be alcohol, it could be stress, it could be sleep hygiene. There could be lots of factors. So this is why, again, we don't wanna take just one number and run with it. We wanna look at the big picture. This is where, especially hemoglobin A1C and insulin comes into play. So hemoglobin A1C, what this is, is hemoglobin and red blood cells binds two glucose. A higher average glucose means a higher percent. Glycation. So a standard lab range, you want it to be less than 5.7%. 5.7 to 6.4 is considered pre-diabetes, and diabetes is anything over 6.5% now. Basically like what this is showing is a like a three month average of your blood glucose exposure. It kind of helps detect chronic exposure to high blood sugars that fasting glucose could miss. Now, I mentioned the normal range, optimal range, that's gonna be more like 5.3% even like 4.8%. That's considered to be more optimal. However, there is a little bit of limitation because it doesn't show daily like blood sugar swings. Someone could have highs and lows that average out to normal. Now, why blood sugar swings matter is because, number one, they drive inflammation and oxidative stress. So every time your blood sugar spikes sharply after a meal, it increases the production of free radicals. The higher the peak and the faster the drop, the more stress on your blood vessels, nerves, organs. Over time, this can actually accelerate aging, cardiovascular risk, and insulin resistance. So blood sugar swings, we don't wanna be up and down all day. They kind of make your pancreas a little bit tired. Big spikes require, require large surges of insulin, so repeated swings where out your beta cells and your pancreas, which can eventually lead to type two diabetes even before diabetes. This can create chronically high insulin, which leads to submarine fat storage fatigue, difficulty losing weight, things like that. It can also cause like energy rollercoasters. So spikes are gonna give you like a short burst of energy. Crash is gonna be brain fog, irritability, shakiness, fatigue, cravings. Cravings are a big one. This often drives overeating, especially craving quick car. We're not typically craving a Turkey lake. We're gonna create like cake, cookies, those like quick digesting carbs. The other thing, I mean, they're gonna, these swings are gonna affect your hormones and even your mood. So cortisol and adrenaline kick in during a blood sugar crash to help raise your glucose backup. It can actually mimic a stress response leading to anxiety or sleep, irritability, or mood swings. So for women, swings can worsen even like PS symptoms or perimenopause. Blood sugar instability interacts with estrogen and progesterone. So there's so many, there's so many things that go along with blood sugar. A lot of times we are conditioned to think about this just in terms of diabetes, but. I mean, it's affecting a lot of things. Our energy, our, our weight, our mood, our hormones. There's so many pieces that go in into blood sugar balance, and this is why we like to teach this to everyone, is how to balance your blood sugar more. It's not just if you have diabetes, it's if you're having cravings, if you're having weight loss resistance, if you're having thyroid issues, if you have PC os, so many, so many different conditions can be well managed. You just improve your quality of life just by. Having better blood sugar control. Having these swings also does increase that cardiometabolic risk, even if your A1C is normal. So studies show that glycemic variability, which is like the ups and downs, how high you go up, how high you go, how low you go down, I guess is an independent factor for heart disease retinopathy. So like eye damage, nerve damage cognitive decline. Two people could have the same like A1C. But one who has like larger swings, has a much higher long term risk now thinking like. Practical implications of this, recognizing blood sugar swings allows for more earlier intervention before fasting glucose and A1C look bad, quote unquote bad. This is why I like to use CGMs. I think they give really valuable data and help us kind of target. Here are some things you need to change up and can let us know. Okay. Are we pairing carbs with enough protein and fat? Are we getting high fiber carbs? Do we need to be getting more movement in? Do we need to prioritize more low glycemic carbs? Do we need to focus on stress or sleep? All these things we can kind of look at based on blood sugar swings. Now when thinking about A1C, so like a normal fasting glucose, but an elevated A1C can suggest like hidden post meal spikes. So then we focus on maybe more like carb quality or pairing carbs better with that protein fat maybe walking after. A low A1C, but like fatigue and hypoglycemia symptoms. This could be even like over restriction or adrenal issues Now. The other one, I like to get fasting insulin. This is not one that is commonly ran. A1C is much more commonly ran fasting insulin, not so much, but it is a measure of how much insulin the pancreas is secreting to keep blood sugar in range without like any food present. So standard range, this is the interesting part. It's like two to 25. Optimal range is more like, honestly, under 10 is pretty good, but even like under seven, like two to seven is more of an optimal range and what it shows. So a high fasting insulin with normal glucose, this is like an early stage of insulin resistance. The pancreas is working maybe a little bit over time to push sugar into your cells. Like, you could also have a low fasting insulin with high glucose, so maybe the pancreas is failing, like late stage diabetes. When we're thinking about this, like if we have a high insulin, but normal glucose, this calls for kind of like, let's make, let's make your cells more insulin sensitive, like straight training, reducing refined carbs. Improving sleep stress. If we have a low insulin and high glucose, this is gonna be more medical support, not just like lifestyle tweaks. If fasting insulin is already optimal, a protocol might lean more towards like maintenance versus aggressive change. So I really like to have this insulin number. You can predict diabetes like years. 10 years sooner when you know what this insulin is doing and you can stop and it tracks before it develops into something more serious. And then the next one is CRP. I would even say that CRP is more commonly to have ran than a insulin. CRP is a protein made by the liver in response to inflammation. Now we have HS, CRP, which is high sensitive CRP. This is for like cardiovascular metabolic risk assessment. A standard CRP is used more for like acute infections. Standard lab range point, we want it below three. Milli milligrams per liter is considered a low risk for heart disease optimal. We want this number to be less than one. What it is showing is systemic inflammation, so it's not specific to like one specific organ. And chronic inflammation worsens with insulin resistance, blood vessel damage, and fat storage. So an elevated CRP can explain why blood sugar, blood pressure, or cholesterol aren't improving despite doing everything right. So then we look at, okay, how do we dive into more like anti-inflammatory side of things? Maybe like you, if you have a high CRP, we're thinking, okay, do we need to look at ultra processed foods? Do we need to look at more omega threes? Do we need to look at more gut health support sleep quality, stress, resilience, hidden infections, things like that. Now if you have a normal CRP with high insulin or glucose, this could maybe indicate some metabolic dysfunction. It, it isn't primarily driven by inflammation, it's more pr, purely like a lifestyle metabolic issue. So I guess, again. More data. So when we put this all together, all these labs, like I said today, focusing mainly like blood sugar labs. I like to look at. We're gonna dive into, I believe, like cholesterol panel and thyroid panel next time. This is kind of, here's some things to consider if you have concerns with your blood sugars. So glucose, it's going to be a single snapshot, A1C plus a glucose. So plus glucose is gonna show short and long-term sugar balance if you add an insulin. This reveals how hard your body is working to kind of achieve those numbers. And then if you add CRP, this can provide context whether inflammation is accelerating dysfunction. So. Having this combination, I always think the more data you can have, the better it is to be able to kind of change your approach. So, I mean, I went there a few, but yeah, like let's take fasting glucose if it's high. We could look at evening behaviors. We could look at refined carbs or sugars, especially at dinner. We could look at. Adding morning exercise, if that's an option we could consider carb timing. Maybe you're not as insulin sensitive in the morning. If it's low. Do we need to look at balancing protein, fiber complex carbs in the morning? Do we need to adjust fasting or low carb protocols? Those are things you can consider there. I mean, insulin, for example. We really wanna catch this insulin resistance, so that way it does not progress to like type two diabetes. And we're not requiring the pancreas to work overtime all the time. So if it's high, we really focus on, okay, strength training. Do we need to look at limiting, not like limiting, but focusing on your fasting period. Like how long are you going between meals or between like dinner and breakfast, especially. We were like, do we need to reduce some snacking so we're not just having insulin kind of hanging out all day long? Do we also need to dive more into like specific nutrients like magnesium, potassium, chromium, like omega threes can even make a difference, but looking at nutrition support as far as minerals especially, do we need to make some adjustments there so that you are not as insulin resistant? CRP, like I mentioned, like if this is high, do we need to focus on more anti-inflammatory foods, reduce our ultra processed foods, prioritize sleep but yeah, even addressing like even fur, further gut health especially. So there could be lots. Of adjustments to your protocols? Well, not lots, but there could be good quality adjustments to your protocols when you have a better picture of what's going on based on, okay, is glucose off? Is insulin off? Is A1C off? Is CRP off what's going on? So that way you can better target. The dysfunctions, I would say, and you can start to make your body more insulin sensitive. You can start to bring down that A1C. You can lower your fasting glucose. You can. Brain down that CRP number and become less inflamed, so that way you're not weight loss resistant. So many implications can kind of come with just having a better idea of what's going on with my pancreas, what's going on with my adrenal glands, what's my mineral status? So valuable information. I hope this is helpful to understand kind of the fasting glucose and beyond what else can go into blood sugars and what else to kind of look for. I said next week we'll dive into thyroid and probably cholesterol. We're gonna try and make it a three part series. If it, the episode gets too long, we'll we'll do another one and make it a four part series. But like I said, we want this to be helpful educational. Don't use this to diagnose yourself. This is just to kind of help you understand and be a little bit more empowered with your health and. Let you know, here's what this could be indicating. Here are kind of things that you can look towards for next steps. All right, everyone, have a good rest of your day and we'll talk. Bye.