4 ms·
You know,.. I actually agree with you. For whatever reason, my below average weight wife has persistently elevated insulin, but normal blood sugar. Still, it wa
by tathougies 9y ago
You know,.. I actually agree with you. For whatever reason, my below average weight wife has persistently elevated insulin, but normal blood sugar. Still, it was high enough for her doctor to wonder whether she had pancreatic cancer (she doesn’t, thankfully). Shes athletic and active and doctors can’t say she her body simply produces more insulin.
It’s really awful to be doing research and read over and over that those with high insulin should lose weight. If my wife loses 10 pounds she would actually be underweight. When she was pregnant last, she lost ten pounds and the doctors were starting to get worried.
The shittiest part is that my fat diabetic family try to give her diet advice while simultaneously having no discipline. We’ve tried diets to lose what weight she has left and bring her insulin down, but no dice. Meanwhile, my family says they’ll diet, eats trash, are fat, and have diabetes and act as if they and my wife have the same disease.
Ultimately focusing all our attention on people engaging in self destructing behaviors lessens the amount of time spent helping people who actually have a disease
- mft_ 9y agoA female (whose weight was already very much on the lower end of 'normal') was diagnosed as pre-diabetic a while ago, and was able to control/improve things with a fairly strict low-carb --verging on keto-- diet. Sounds similar, and a similar approach may be worth trying?
- AstralStorm 9y agoThese diets cause weight loss. The person is already mildly underweight so they are doubly risky. Not to say these shouldn't be tried, but only under careful monitoring.
- mft_ 9y agoSure - agree about the monitoring. No export, but from what I've read, while they (slow/low-carb diets) are usually used for weight-loss, your caloric intake is still important while following the diet. Thus it's possible to follow a s/low-carb diet and maintain, rather than lose, weight.
- tathougies 9y agoWe did that and she lost a lot of weight, and had to gain it back. We loved keto though. It's like the easiest diet to follow, for us at least
- AstralStorm 9y agoThis just shows how little we know about metabolic diseases. She might have one of the genetic insulin resistance variants - a few are already known. As long as blood sugar is controlled (check with Hb1Ac test) and cancer is thoroughly excluded (not just pancreatic, other ones can cause this too), higher than typical insulin should be no real problem... Not a licensed medical advice of course.
- tathougies 9y agoYou're right... there shouldn't be any link. My wife and I are typically not really into treating things that don't cause issues. However, we'd been investigating any reason why we've lost seven pregnancies to stillbirth and miscarriage, and there's some studies indicating that lower insulin leads to better outcomes. That's why we had been trying to get it as low as possible. At this point, though, it's not clear whether or not that was even a factor.