Paul shares his blood work results for fasting insulin, Hemoglobin A1C, and fasting glucose, and explains what healthy metrics to look for in your bloodwork. He explains the detriments of a ketogenic diet without eating any carbohydrates and what he believes really leads to insulin resistance.
Without further ado let’s dive into my labs again i’m going to get to all of these um during this podcast i did lipids i did hormones i did inflammatory markers i did uh thyroid i did iron studies i got pretty much very comprehensive panel but this is the most important piece of any blood work i think to set the context you must know the framework uh of any
Blood work before you are thinking about it so insulin fasting insulin mine is 2.4 okay igf-1 is 112. and if we look up i can show you my fasting glucose which i believe was 79 with a hemoglobin a1c of 5.2 so this is actually probably where i should start insulin fasting insulin 2.4 hemoglobin a1c 5.2 fasting blood sugar 79 and then you can take the fasting
Insulin and the fasting glucose and calculate a homa ir score it’s just a calculated indicator of insulin resistance these are all very very good in my opinion i don’t think anyone would debate that i’m extremely insulin sensitive that my fasting blood sugar is exemplary and my hemoglobin a1c of 5.2 reflects an average blood sugar of 103 milligrams per deciliter
Over the last 90 days hemoglobin a1c is a measure of the average blood sugar over the last 93 days you can see my fasting blood sugar in the morning was 79 and so this is important so what i want to talk about here i want to note that with a massive amount quote unquote of fruit and honey in my diet i remain extremely insulin sensitive i don’t think anyone would
Argue this there are people on the keto side who would say honey is bad for you and hopefully i’ll be able to have conversations with them in the near future and talk it out in an interesting way but i disagree i think there’s lots of good evidence that honey is great for humans i’ve shown it many times on the podcast previously and people would also say fruit is
Bad it’s going to raise your blood sugar well of course it’s going to raise your blood sugar after you eat it postprandially but i think that the real problem that people are pointing at here is are you insulin resistant and no i am not insulin resistant in my case and i think in all cases of homo sapiens eating fruit and eating honey will not make you insulin
Resistant in any way shape or form these foods should not be eaten at the exclusion of other foods which are also valuable parts of the human diet that are nutrient rich like meat and organs and animal fats you should not become a fruitarian but i think having some fruit and honey in your diet are great sources of carbohydrates and will improve your performance
Whether you’re doing jiu jitsu whether you’re surfing whether you’re running whether you’re sprinting with your lifting weights this i think is the key one of the key things that i learned in my journey from carnivore strictly to animal based that adding carbohydrates in improved my hormones as you’ll see my thyroid my testosterone it improved my muscle cramps it
Improved my mental clarity it improved cardiac issues like heart palpitations which are related to electrolyte issues it improved so many things and my fasting insulin actually probably went down my fasting blood sugar went down when i added carbohydrates uh i think i have a fasting blood sugar from when i was on carnivore they’re usually high 90s or 100s because
There is some physiologic insulin resistance which is different than pathologic insulin resistance that develops when we are on a ketogenic diet these are the reasons that i am not a fan of ketogenic diets i don’t think that they serve us well long term as humans i’ve talked about this many many times and hopefully i’ll be able to do a podcast exclusively on that
Topic fasting insulin should be less than 5 micro iu per ml again mine was 2.4 2.4 the i believe the median for the american population is nine if you look at this blood work you’ll see that if i click on this insulin it says low risk is less than nine that is this reference range is way too big moderate risk is nine to twenty four look if you are a six a
Seven an eight or a nine that’s not good you do not wanna be that insulin resistant a 24 that’s massively insulin resistant anything above a 9 to 9 to 24 that’s extremely insulin resistant there’s this reference range should be much tighter i think it would change the face of medicine as we know it today but start with a fasting insulin then triangulate it with a
Fasting glucose get a hemoglobin a1c if you want to know what your average blood sugar over the last three months has been or wear a continuous glucose monitor from a company like nutrisense i’ve done multiple podcasts with kara a dietitian from nutrisense talking about how to interpret your continuous blood glucose monitor findings but this is the most important
Piece of this blood work is to show you guys the context i am insulin sensitive and i eat a shitload of fruit and a lot of honey per day how much well you can watch my stories on instagram but today i’ve eaten i think i’ve eaten an entire papaya i’ve eaten close to an entire pineapple and i’ve probably had three to four tablespoons of honey already today and i
Haven’t eaten dinner now dinner will probably be another 50 to 75 grams of carbohydrates but that’s a lot of carbohydrates that i’ve already ingested yes my postprandial after meal blood sugar is going to go up but i don’t worry about that i remain insulin sensitive insulin is a valuable hormone having an after meal a postprandial spike in your insulin does so many
Good things for your body it helps your body conserve minerals helps your body conserve electrolytes this is why people on long-term ketogenic diets often run into recalcitrant electrolyte deficiencies and no amount of salt or electrolyte supplementation will correct them i’ve seen this over and over and over giving your body some insulin is a good thing insulin
Is not the enemy in this situation and i think that you can eat a lot of raw honey and a lot of fruit and not develop insulin induced insulin resistance this unfortunately i think is where many in the ketogenic field go wrong in their thinking they believe that more insulin is always bad you should have your insulin as low as possible all the time i think that is
Wrong i think phasic right postprandial after you eat pulses of insulin are healthy and essential for optimal human health you want to spike your insulin after a meal you want it to come down very low which is a reflection of your overall insulin sensitivity hopefully that makes sense what causes pathological insulin resistance seed oils and processed sugars i
Think that that can lead to some degree of insulin induced insulin resistance but also metabolic insulin resistance metabolic dysfunction through more complex mechanisms that are beyond the scope of this podcast
Transcribed from video
Insulin is not the enemy: Paul’s glucose levels decreased after adding fruit and honey to his diet By CarnivoreMD