3 Essential Blood Tests To Run: you need to know this | Episode 4 of 18

you must know that there is a test that is  even more important than fasting glucose there is a measure in our body that gives us an even  better understanding of how healthy we are and it's not [Music] glucose hello angels and welcome  to the glucos goddess show I'm jine chusp I'm a biochemist obsessed with helping you feel your  absolute best and in this episode we're going to cover a very important topic of what blood  tests to order to measure your glucose Health to measure your insulin resistance to measure how  your body is doing internally so let's get to it glucose is your body's favorite source of energy  and when everything is going well and you have an adequate amount of glucose your body is thriving  if you have too much glucose in your body or if you have something called insulin resistance or  pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes then problems are going to start happening now the issue is most of  us don't know whether we're internally healthy or not until it's too late so these are the blood  tests to run or to ask your doctor to run so that you can detect any issues early enough to act  on them the first important test you've actually probably already had it measured it is your  fasting glucose level and generally your doctor is going to order this about once a year because it's  the most standard measure of your glucose Health unfortunately it's very incomplete and we'll get  to that in a second but it's still important to mention so your fasting glucose measures how  much blood sugar or glucose there is in your bloodstream obviously first thing in the morning  when you are fasted and why does this test happen when you're fasted simply because after sleeping  for a long time after fasting for a long time your body has got the time to bring your GL glucose  levels back down to their Baseline so if you were to measure your glucose levels after a meal  for example they would be up and down and doing lots of stuff when we're fasted generally they're  pretty stable and they give us a good indication of where our Baseline is so you're fasting glucose  the number is going to come back something between probably 80 and 150 and the standard guidelines  are that if your fasting glucose is underneath one 100 mg per deciliter so underneath 100 then you  are healthy and there's nothing to worry about if you are between 100 and 126 then that's considered  pre-diabetes and above 126 that is considered type 2 diabetes now this is in milligrams per deciliter  units if you're in a country like Australia the UK Canada Switzerland the numbers are going to be a  bit different it's like the difference between you know kilos and pounds different unit systems in  those countries your fasting glucose level will come back as a number between four and sevenish  okay and in those countries Mill per liter normal is anything under 5. 5 Mill Mill per liter going  forward in this episode I'm going to focus on the milligrams per deciliter measurements and if  you want a nice easy conversion table there's a free pdf in the description of this episode that  contains the conversion but also everything I'm going to touch on in this episode episode The  Blood tester run the ranges that you should aim for what they mean Etc so if you want to have  this all recapped in a nice easy page head to that link in the description so interestingly even  though your doctor might say that anything under 100 is totally normal early studies are showing  us that underneath 100 might not actually be optimal there's a really interesting study that  came out that is called fasting blood glucose an underestimated risk factor for cardiovascular  health results from a 22-year followup of healthy non-diabetic men and in this study they found  that more than half of the participants over this 22-year follow-up died of cardiovascular disease  so heart disease which is unfortunately incredibly common and that if the men had a fasting glucose  level above 85 okay then they had a much higher risk of dying of cardiovascular disease regardless  of their age whether they smoked or not or any other of the heart disease biomarkers so a few  of these Studies have popped up showing us that actually maybe our objective for fasting glucose  level should be somewhere under 85 milligram per deciliter now that's considered to be the optimal  range so under 100 is normal average under 85 is optimal and for the little story so I've had  a long journey with my fasting glucose level metrics my insulin metrics that I'll cover in a  bit and when I was 23 years old my doctor measured my fasting glucose level and the result was 94  milligram per deciliter then 2 years later it was 96 milligram per deciliter and unfortunately as  is too often the case these days my doctor didn't say anything my doctor didn't say hey Jesse your  fasting glucose level seems to be increasing and getting towards that 100 milligram per cut off  where technically you'll be pre-diabetic so maybe you should look at what you're eating and try to  get that number down no they didn't say anything and again today way too often a doctor will not  say anything until you become pre-diabetic so if your fasting glucose level is between 85 and  100 don't just sit there think okay how could I get that number to be in the optimal range so it  doesn't keep creeping up because un fortunately as we age that fasting glucose level tends to just  creep up if we don't change anything so have a look at my hacks also linked in the description  which are a really good place to start to get that number down and if you have pre-diabetes  or type 2 diabetes same thing applies you can get that fasting glucose level back down with my  hacks so that you're no longer pre-diabetic or have type two diabetes it's completely feasible  and many of my readers do it on a weekly basis and I was able to do it as well with my hacks  I went from 96 to 87 mg per deciliter which is where I am right now of course it's not yet 85  but I'm pretty happy with this result considering that just a few years ago I was at 96 fasting  glucose level 100% a test that you should ask your doctor to do and probably you already have  those results so go have a look if you have those numbers somewhere and compare them to these ranges  to see where you fall now another test that you should probably order and have a look at is called  the the hba1c test it sounds really complicated but let me explain what it is it looks at how  much glucose has been circulating in your body over the past two to three months so you might  wonder how on Earth is a blood test measuring something that's been happening over two to three  months well it does so with a really interesting concept if you've seen my other videos you've  learned that one of the consequences of having a lot of glucose in our body is that this process  called glycation happens more and more glycation is like what happens to a chicken that you put  in the oven it goes from pink to Brown it Cooks in the oven and that cooking process is glycation  now interestingly glycation is like aging and as human beings from the moment we're born we slowly  glycate we slowly age and we slowly cook on the inside I know it sounds weird but it's true and  then when we're fully cooked we die I know no I know it's Grim but even though we cannot stop this  glycation process from happening inside our bodies we can slow it down or speed it up and the more  glucose spikes and the more glucose we have in our body the faster this process happen the faster we  age and the faster we glycate essentially the way it works is that glucose molecules in your body  will bump in to lots of other random molecules and they will damage them and in that process  they do what's called glycating them so glucose glyat other molecules and that's why glucose and  glycation actually sound kind of like the same word because they're very related and the hba1c  test measures how many red blood cells have been glycated and as such gives us a good estimation of  how much glucose has been circulating in your body for the last two to three months okay so in terms  of the ranges and by the way hb1c is something you'd be more familiar with if you have typee 2  diabetes or type 1 diabetes the ranges underneath 5. 7% is considered normal for hba1c terms between  5.

7 and 6. 4 is considered pre-diabetes and above 6. 5% is considered diabetes so measure your hba1c  make sure it is below 5.

7% and again if it is too high it's not an issue if you use my hacks you'll  be able to reduce how much glucose is circulating and slowly lower your hba1c which is going to  help you as you age be healthier instead of having your health deteriorate more and more hey  really quickly if you want to study your glucose levels and feel better than you currently do  but you don't really know where to start and you don't want it to be complicated because you're  very busy well my recipe Club has got your back monthly super easy recipes to keep your glucose  level steady to keep your Cravings low and to keep your motivation super high cuz it's fun and new  every month check out the link in the description okay back to the episode you must know that there  is a test that is even more important than fasting glucose there is a measure in our body that gives  us an even better understanding of how healthy we are and it's not glucose it is fasting insulin  levels okay so why is that the case and what to do well first of all I need to explain to you  what insulin actually does so every time there's a glucose spike in your body because you just ate  carbs your body asks your pancreas your organ the pancreas to send out a hormone called insulin  insulin's job she's awesome is she grabs all the excess glucose that is circulating around in  the bloodstream causing havoc and she stores the excess glucose into your liver into your muscles  and into your fat cells so insulin disposes of excess glucose in the body and in the process  helps us reduce any big glucose Spike we just experienced from a meal so insulin is incredibly  useful and Powerful so why do we need to measure insulin to look at our health levels okay let me  give you an example when I was a student I first studied uh mathematics in London I discovered  coffee I had never had coffee before in my life and one of my friends was like you've never had  coffee try it it's amazing you're going to feel so awake so I have my first coffee and of course  let me tell you I could not sleep that night I was wired I was like whoa this stuff is so strong  holy hell wow wow wow wow so that was my first coffee fast forward three months I need like three  coffees a day just to wake up and stay awake so what is that about how did I go from a situation  where one coffee made me feel so much and then I needed three coffees to get that same effect  effect or even actually to get less of an effect I had become gradually resistant to caffeine my  body had gotten so used to it that it was just not sensitive to it anymore and I need to give it  more and more caffeine to get the same effect this is habituation it's called and the same thing  happens in your body with insulin so over time as insulin keeps rushing into your body to take  that excess glucose and store it away your cells become less sensitive to insulin and your pancreas  has to produce more and more insulin to get the same glucose lowering effect as before you as a  human then become gradually resistant to insulin and this resistance to insulin which is called as  the name indicates insulin resistance is a very important measure of Health insulin resistance  is in essentially on a spectrum if you are not insulin resistant at all then you're super healthy  then as you get more and more insulin resistant that turns into pre-diabetes and then into type  2 diabetes the more insulin resistant you are the harder it is going to be for your body to keep  your glucose levels in the healthy range so your body's going to pump out more and more insulin  but because you're more and more resistant to it your glucose levels are going to keep rising and  rising and rising and Rising but what's really interesting here is that if you measure your  fasting insulin level bear in mind this is a test that most doctors do not order so you really  have to ask for it it is incredibly crucial in helping you determine how healthy your metabolism  is because fasting insulin levels start increasing years before your fasting glucose levels increase  have a look at this graph as you can see for a few years fasting glucose level is normal but  insulin fasting insulin levels start to rise and only after several years of this situation do  your fasting glucose levels also start to rise so if you measure your fasting insulin level you will  get a much better idea of what actually is going on because you could have a totally optimal  glucose level but your insulin level could already be pretty high indicating that you are  on your way to seeing your glucose level slowly increase and in towards pre-diabetes so in terms  of the range that you want your fasting insulin level to be in the optimal range for insulin is  for fasting insulin is 2 to six micro units per milliliter a normal level is 6 to 10 Micro units  per milliliter and and anything above 10 Micro units per milliliter can indicate pre-diabetes or  diabetes so 100% get your fasting insulin levels checked this is by far the most important test  to measure how far long this spectrum you are on and whether or not you need to take action to get  that number down so we went over fasting glucose which is great but not very complete but very  welln hba1c usually reserved to people people with type 2 diabetes or type 1 diabetes but  still a really interesting test and fasting insulin which is by far the most important test to  do but most doctors do not order it so you have to ask your doctor for it and you can show them this  evidence that I'm linking in the PDF to explain why it's so important to measure fasting insulin  so that we can detect problems early on and work on prevention not just be reactive once we have  a pre-diabetes diagnosis and if you do have a pre-diabetes or type two diabetes diagnosis  your fasting insulin level is going to be high because as I explained fasting insulin Rises  before fasting glucose Rises and as you put your type two diabetes or pre-diabetes into remission  using as support my hacks your fasting insulin is also going to go down now one last test I want  to cover is a very specific measure of how far along the insulin resistance Spectrum you are and  it actually combines fasting insulin and fasting glucose into a number that gives you a really  precise idea of whether or not you have insulin resistance this is super important because up to  47% of the population is already insulin resistant and insulin resistance is not just problematic  for the development of type two diabetes it also increases your risk of having cognitive decline  or of having hormonal issues like polycystic or Varian syndrome it's very very common and it  can cause a lot of issues but thankfully we can measure it and we can act on it so the last  thing I want to cover is the H IR ratio so the H IR ratio and I put this all in the PDF Linked  In the description don't worry you don't have to remember this formula so to to measure your H iron  ratio you have to multiply glucose fasting glucose times fasting insulin divided by 405 if you are  in milligrams per deciliter units and divided by 22. 5 if you are in Mill moles per liter unit okay  and the result of this ratio is as follows if your home IR ratio is less than two then you have good  optimal insulin sensitivity you are not insulin resistance if your home IR ratio result is between  two and three then that indicates early insulin resistance and if it's above three that indicates  significant insulin resistance so you want to try to get that ratio to be underneath two let me give  you an example if you have a fasting glucose level of 87 and fasting insulin level of six and here  we are in milligrams per deciliter you would do 87 * 6 / 45 which is 1. 28 8 rounded to 1.