Diagnosing Insulin Resistance

Next you need to determine if you have insulin resistance such as diabetes itself, prediabetes or metabolic syndrome.  If you have any of these conditions, the sugar experiment is particularly useful for you.  That experiment is specifically designed for people with mild insulin resistance.  In it, you will develop an elimination diet that is intended to naturally bring down your blood glucose using foods with low amounts of concentrated sweets.  While this experiment can also work for patients with full blown diabetes, we do not recommend for diabetics to do this without a careful consultation with their physician.  This is why we exclude patients with diabetes from the sugar experiment.

In the initial assessment, we have already discussed and recorded the levels of glucose at which you would have a diagnosis of Diabetes or Prediabetes.  To recap, the levels are shown in the table below.

Test	Normal	Prediabetes	Diabetes
Fasting Glucose	< 100 mg/dl	101-126 mg/dl	>126 mg/dl
Hemoglobin A1c	< 5.7%	5.7-6.4%	>6.4%

You may have multiple values in your record for both fasting glucose and hemoglobin A1c.  They will vary over time and with your health status.

Fasting Insulin Level

Don’t forget that the other way to get an idea whether or not you have some insulin resistance is to look at the fasting insulin level.  If it is more than 10, your body may be struggling already to keep up with your carbohydrate intake by making more insulin

Metabolic Syndrome

The other important diagnosis related to insulin resistance is the Metabolic Syndrome.  This diagnosis is a manifestation of insulin resistance that involves glucose regulation but also brings in other elements like fat metabolism, body composition and blood pressure.  It is important to point out, that metabolic syndrome is a substantial risk factor for heart disease.  Patients with metabolic syndrome are as much as 3-fold more likely to have heart disease than those who do not have it.  If you have it, I strongly encourage you to talk with your physician about this condition and how it is treated before moving on to the Glycemic Control Experiment.  I still encourage you to do the experiment, but you should be collaborating with your physician throughout as you have a condition that puts you at risk of heart disease.

The criteria to diagnose Metabolic Syndrome are shown in the table below, you need 3 out of the 5 criteria to qualify for the diagnosis but these are all signs of insulin resistance, so any one of them should make you consider doing the Glycemic Control Experiment before moving on to other stages.

Diagnostic Criteria for Metabolic Syndrome

Measurement	Criteria
Waist Circumference	Men: > 40 inches, 102 cm; Women:  > 35 inches, 88 cm
Blood Pressure	> 130/85 or on blood pressure medicines
Triglyceride	> 150 mg/dl (fasting)
HDL	Men: < 40 mg/dl; Women: < 50 mg/dl
Fasting Glucose	> 100 mg/dl (fasting)

Return to your notes and count the criteria that you have for Metabolic Syndrome and then make the diagnosis on yourself.  If you have Metabolic Syndrome, be sure to discuss it with your physician and then proceed to the sugar experiment.