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Insulin Response to Glucose

2K views 11 replies 5 participants last post by  mbuster 
#1 ·
Hello, all-

I just had an insulin response to glucose test that appears to have displayed some reactive hypoglycemia:

Fasting: Glucose 90; Insulin 3.8
1-Hour: Glucose 135; Insulin 19.4
2-Hour: Glucose 90; Insulin 27.4
3-Hour: Glucose 45; Insulin 2.7

There does seem to be a delayed insulin response, but nothing too out of range. Also curious is that last year, it was determined that I had low cortisol, high DHEA, and elevated testosterone via a saliva test and I was wondering if this could be masking a more overt insulin resistant state.
 
#2 ·
ok this concerns me a bit. can you provide some information. are you taking medication? if so, what meds and dosages?

the 45 is very low and concerning. did you double check and retest to make sure?

were you feeling any symptoms?
 
#4 ·
Has your doctor mentioned reactive hypoglycemia? I don't know much about it and the numbers may be all telling in your test, I just don't know what they mean. Could be too much secondary phase insulin, maybe signaling issue, not getting glucagon response to shut down insulin or the liver is not putting more glucose into the bloodstream to catch the dropping BG. What little I've read on the subject, high insulin levels during OGTT is a good indication of the onset of insulin resistance. Not saying yours are high, because I don't know. Seems they would have done testing on 30 minute intervals.

Welcome to the forum. Maybe someone else who has had this test or reactive hypoglycemia can offer more.
 
#7 ·
I think you're right in thinking we should have also tested the 30 minute marker. I'm not sure why we didn't. My doctor simply said to see an endocrinologist and to eat every 3 hours in the meantime. Seeing that the peak insulin response was delayed to the second hour, and the blood glucose dropped down into dangerous low territory, I have assumed on my own that it is reactive hypoglycemia. To the best of my knowledge, my insulin levels themselves do not appear to be high, but the pattern appears to indicative of some sort of insulin resistance. Perhaps the 30 minute marker could have been more revealing.
 
#8 ·
I had reactive hypoglycemia for years before eventually my pancreas wasn't able to overproduce insulin and then I was on the road to diabetes.

I treated R.H. with a low-carb way of eating and it was quite effective. I also made sure I never went more than 3 hours before eating.

I shouldn't think that you really need another test when symptoms are clear. You can get off that roller coaster by preventing BG spikes to happen in the first place - and eating LCHF (low-carb/high-fat) should do the trick.

Take a look at what LCHF is about here
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb
 
#9 ·
Unfortunately, I already eat a low-carb, healthy diet. I also don't have the typical T2D or insulin resistance risk factors. I am a 23 year old male with a healthy BMI at 21.7 who exercises at least a few times a week. I have a feeling that I may just have a predisposition towards this issue.
 
#12 ·
There is such a thing as "carb flu" that happens when people reduce carbs. Its mainly an electrolyte imbalance. Usually when carbs are reduced, many times it is a reduction in processed foods and those processed foods contain quite a bit of sodium. Most of can get out of that by simply increasing our salt intake, and I would recommend a pink salt.
 
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