Ellen,
Unfortunately the data seems to offer more confusion than clarity. The arbitrary nature of a number-based diagnosis gave rise to the nicknamed term "euboxic" -- "eu" meaning normal and "boxic" meaning all of a person's lab values are in the boxes established by the reference ranges. However, someone can be very sick and be euboxic, or have a lots of values out of the reference ranges (which I guess should be called "dysboxic") and be in perfect health. (Sort of like the BMI "box" -- if one is very muscular, one can be out of the "healthy" BMI box and at the same time be healthier than most, and possibly even all of those in the healthy BMI box.
A number-based approach to medicine may be shortsighted, but it may also be a starting place for seeing a bigger picture. In the case of the reference range for glucose, it's a range based on covering 95% of the *healthy* people. What about the other 5%? They were as healthy as the other people used to establish the standards for the test, but their values were outside of the reference range. Are they diabetic? No. The numbers are intended to be clues for diagnosis while looking at the big picture, and are not for establishing a diagnosis in a vacuum.
Another problem is that the reference range is time and situation sensitive (a fasting glucose is after fasting how long? How much stress and adrenaline/cortisol release preceded the test?) and we've seen that there's a difference between a sporadic fast and an adaptation to fasting. At the very least one would consider what a person's HbA1c looked like before raising any concerns because a blood glucose level a bit above the norm. One would want to see what it and the insulin level looks like at different times in the day. If it's steady, I'd say the pancreas is working fine.
As you probably know, my tendency is to trust the body's homeostatic mechanisms more than the boxes. When the numbers get way out of the box, then one has to wonder what's going on -- by looking at the person, not the numbers. Add to all this the other confounding factor -- so much that seems like it should be known isn't -- and it can get pretty foggy as to what the right course is.
As for resveratrol, it has been known to have an antihyperglycemic effect, at least in rats (PMID: 18675532 and others).
Hope this helps,
Bert
Bert Herring
Fast-5 Corporation
--- In fast5@yahoogroups.
>
> Two years ago I started Fast-5 for the first time. I loved it. Felt
> more energy, more even moods, easily lost the weight I needed to lose
> at the rate of 2 pounds a week. And it fit easily into my life. I
> simply ate lunch and breakfast and was not terribly strict about
> whether my window was 5 hours occasionally 7.
>
> It also lowered my small dense LDL (tested directly) and reduced
> greatly my already low CRP
>
>
> But I also found at the end of 6 months, that I had the first higher
> than 100 blood sugar at the doc's. My blood sugar levels have remained
> above 100 since that time ( a year and a half). I tried Dr.
> Schwarzbine'
> strict with my carbs as per Dr. Bernstein (The Diabetes Solution)
> But haven't gotten them down below 100. They are not high enough to be
> diagnosed as diabetic, but that is only because I am very strictly low
> carb. But if you think about the arbitrary way they assign that
> diagnosis it is rather silly. Either you have some inability to
> metabolize carbohydrate, or you don't. IMO it is like being a little
> bit pregnant!
>
> Because of this I have talked about blood sugar issues a number of
> times here. I have wondered about my first high fasting blood sugar
> was caused by doing fast-5 or if it was a coincidence. What was the
> relation between Fast-5 and my blood sugar issues.
>
> My most recent theory is that I had some kind of insulin, blood sugar
> irregularity all my life which manifested in my constant hunger, and
> mood and energy swings. For at least ten years before Fast-5 I was
> probably insulin resistant. I had the signs: a new pattern of
> overweight much of it around the middle and I could not lose it . I
> did not have high tryglycrides but I did have high LDL I probably had
> high post meal blood sugars all that time too, but had so much
> circulating insulin that my fasting blood sugar was below 100 all that
> time. So finally getting the insulin levels down did not *cause* the
> higher blood sugars...it just revealed the other aspect of my problem
> . And this is a good thing.
>
> Ellen
>
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