First May I wish all the Fathers out there an Happy and Healthy Fathers Day!
I saw this Twitter conversation today and just felt the need to chirp in. Dr. E of dietdoctor.com posed this tweet shown below.
As I have been measuring insulin as well as many other metabolic markers for over 2 decades, I thought the need to chime in.
If you are an IMW member and have your IMW Advanced Wellness Tests available, check your numbers after you read my response to Dr. E.
If you are not an IMW member, perhaps try and get the testing mentioned to see where you stand.
Here is my response:
Not the complete dynamic here.
Insulin helps store excess carbs as fat.
But excess dietary fat also gets stored without the need for insulin.
So u can gain fat weight with either excess.
But Fasting Insulin levels do not necessarily stay elevated UNLESS the subq fat cells run out of safe storage space.
Fasting Insulin levels do not necessarily stay elevated if you have active muscle and organ mass to burn calories before the excess needs to get stored.
So it’s a balance.
When the safe fat cell space runs out of room, Insulin Resistance occurs in the cells, and we see this evidenced thru multiple markers, not just Insulin.
We also see the following with Insulin Resistance:
Low levels of Adiponectin and a high Leptin/Adiponectin ratio are good markers of excess fat stores. But many obese people with high Leptin/Adiponectin ratios are NOT yet Insulin Resistant and this can be seen by Adiponectin levels higher than expected, irregardless of the Leptin.
These are the main markers I have seen over the past 20 years following people who have moved towards Diabetes/Insulin Resistance as well as those who reversed these markers thru dietary changes.
Insulin Resistance is mainly a defensive cellular response to not “overstuff” themselves.
So yes, if we are Insulin Resistant, we need to let our excess clear. Until that happens we are metabolically inflamed and not the healthiest we can be.
So focusing solely/mostly on one marker, Insulin, will never get this debate settled. We need to look at everything in total, at all the known variables and how they work with each other.
Did I get it right?
Did I miss something?
You can follow the Twitter thread, if it continues here.
Very well said. Intermittent fasting and low carb and no sugar, the way to go.