Just like all the other health markers we monitor, they're averages. Basically guidelines. So I'm sure there are people who could have blood sugars elevated outside of the recommended range and still be healthy. How high? Who knows.
Lowering HBA1C
- Thread starter BanditNOLIMIT
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There are some indications that our current guidelines aren't in line with health, but it's on the other side, unfortunately.
Just like blood pressure, there are studies showing that low normal is significantly better for longevity than high normal, and that if you want to live into your sixties, the guidelines are fine, but if you want to make it to your eighties and nineties, the guidelines aren't strict enough.
If you want to live as long as possible, you keep your weight, blood pressure and sugars all on the low end of normal.
Even still, it's not unusual for a healthy person to live to 100+, but the longest lived diabetic Bob Krause made only 91. His picture is below, and you can see how his skin is getting brown and dead from his proteins glycating.
He was a machine though, he lived as long as he did by not fucking around with his disease. Respect!
He said,
Krause says he's lived a long life because he treats his body like a car, eating only just enough food to fuel the machine. "To keep your diabetes under control, you only eat the food you need to before you have activities to perform," he said. "I eat to keep me alive instead of eating all the time, or for pleasure."
And the former college professor tests his blood up to a dozen times a day, bringing updated charts of his condition to every doctor visit.
When he was younger you had to boil your urine down in a test tube with a tablet and check the colour against a chart to test your sugars. Then you had to sterilize your glass syringes and sharpen the needles on a whetstone before you gave yourself insulin.
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Hey all, I wanted to provide an update on my situation.
Fortunately, I'm seeing positive results from implementing Metformin and insulin.
Heres how my A1C has trended:
May 2023 - 5.3
Sept 2023 - 5.4
Oct 2023 - 5.5 (I had been using insulin a few days a week for several months, implemented Metformin 2-4 weeks before)
Jan 2024 - 5.2 (Same insulin protocol, now about 4 months of using Metformin)
Food has continued to climb as well.
Hoping those numbers are accurate and not a discrepancy in the testing!
Fortunately, I'm seeing positive results from implementing Metformin and insulin.
Heres how my A1C has trended:
May 2023 - 5.3
Sept 2023 - 5.4
Oct 2023 - 5.5 (I had been using insulin a few days a week for several months, implemented Metformin 2-4 weeks before)
Jan 2024 - 5.2 (Same insulin protocol, now about 4 months of using Metformin)
Food has continued to climb as well.
Hoping those numbers are accurate and not a discrepancy in the testing!
Point 3 reduction is a Five and a half percent drop in just a few months, that seems promising. Congratulations!
Very interesting I've been thinking about adding metformin into my daily . How much you taking again ? Believe you said 1000 mg split ?
Im definitely thrilled to see it. Honestly I would have been content with maintaining the same level, but to see it trending down is even better!
500mg daily. I use 1000mg of berberine as well.
Ah ok thanks for the share and knowledge brother .
Did the berberine turn your piss yellow?
can’t say it did. I’ve been using it for a couple years on and off and I’ve never noticed that
Hiit worked really well for lowering my ha1c also some other good blood work to look at is c-peptide, HOMA2-%B, HOMA2-%S, HOMA2-IR, and triglyceride glucose index (TYG). I don't think basing too much worry specifically on fasted glucose or ha1c is needed because the results can mean different things. It's just a quick look into it.
interesting.
What type of things could these other markers suggest?
I’d imagine it’d be tough talking a doc into requesting these due to their obscurity
Yea my doc just randomly did them he kind of rotates and cycles through different things over different parts of the year. I don't know much about these new markers but he said he ran them because up until now my fasted blood glucose and ha1c were usually a bit higher. I think one of them he mentioned is a better indicator for insulin resistence and mostly I just remember him saying he doesn't usually worry about blood glucose or ha1c without checking these things first. I think one of them I asked if it could indicate non alcoholic fatty liver disease based on triglyceride values and I think he said yes. It might be interesting for guys to look into.
Good info. Thanks!
Because the HOMA2-IR models the feedback relationship between insulin and glucose in the various organs in the body13, it is considered a more accurate representation of the metabolic process and so was used in further analysis for determining IR prevalence in the region.