all posts post new thread

Nutrition 100% Carnivore

Status
Closed Thread. (Continue Discussion of This Topic by Starting a New Thread.)
Well now we got ourselves a little Carnivore group!
This is going to be fun!

But today is Thanksgiving. And those pies and biscuits aren't going to eat themselves.

Tomorrow rib eyes.
Today the opposite of rib eyes.
 
Spoken like a true 99% carnivore
Probably less. Coffee is non negotiable.

There's a ranch in NM that breeds full wagu cattle. I don't know if they go full Japanese and massage the cows everyday.

They sent me a good Black Friday deal, order an English roast and get 30% off filet mignon. I placed an order and will report back.
 
I've spent way too much time reading about wagu vs kobe beef.

All kobe beef is wagu. It can only be eaten in a small region in Japan.

There are different strands of wagu beef in the US. Most is cross bred with regular cattle.
Lone Mountain Wagu is 100% wagu. They've been exclusively raising wagu cattle for generations.

After extensive research, I have decided to reverse sear the wagu filets.
I'm feeling the pressure to do justice to this special meat. I can't overcook the wagu!
 
Carnivore Day 1

Breakfast: 4 fried eggs & 5 strips of bacon
Lunch: 3 hamburger patties with pepper jack cheese & a splash of tabasco on each

So far, so good, but dinner awaits.......maybe I will have to hit Wendy's and grab 4 more hamburger patties.
 
Carnivore Day 1

Breakfast: 4 fried eggs & 5 strips of bacon
Lunch: 3 hamburger patties with pepper jack cheese & a splash of tabasco on each

So far, so good, but dinner awaits.......maybe I will have to hit Wendy's and grab 4 more hamburger patties.
You should start a log in the strong food logs sub forum, that way you don't have to wade through the rest of the posts in this thread.
 
Currently wearing a continuous glucose monitor. I was going to wait until next time I saw my doc, but then a friend offered to prescribe me one and I couldn't pass it up. I'll post an actual write up here in about a week, but for now I just want ya'll to know that I have quantifiable proof that a toddler tantrum is more stressful than heavy snatches. That is all.
 
Currently wearing a continuous glucose monitor. I was going to wait until next time I saw my doc, but then a friend offered to prescribe me one and I couldn't pass it up. I'll post an actual write up here in about a week, but for now I just want ya'll to know that I have quantifiable proof that a toddler tantrum is more stressful than heavy snatches. That is all.

That’s actually very interesting. I’m curious of your observations.
 
Out of curiosity, is it the Abbott Freestyle Libre?

Currently wearing a continuous glucose monitor. I was going to wait until next time I saw my doc, but then a friend offered to prescribe me one and I couldn't pass it up. I'll post an actual write up here in about a week, but for now I just want ya'll to know that I have quantifiable proof that a toddler tantrum is more stressful than heavy snatches. That is all.
 
CGM Write up



Alright, here’s my write up for 12 days of CGM monitoring on the carnivore diet. It’s pretty long (I wrote it while I was making observations), so I chunked it into sections. Read at your own leisure. Or not. The main benefit for me comes from getting my thoughts down on “paper,” and having them in one spot to refer back to ;)

To be clear, this is my data that comes from my body. It would be unwise to assume that my metabolism is exactly like yours, or anyone else. Metabolism is complex, and is influenced by a number of factors, such as genetics and dietary history (mostly the latter, in my opinion). So yeah, we’re each a special snowflake and all that jazz.

Gear:
I used a Freestyle Libre monitor, which uses a 14 day sensor that stabs a little needle into your tricep. It stops feeling irritated after a couple days. It’s very good for looking at patters, but since it measures tissue glucose, it lags behind actual blood glucose a little when there are rapid changes. Still very accurate when dealing with the normal ups and downs of everyday metabolism, you just don’t get 100% real time feedback during periods of rapid change. The sensor is sticky as hell, and even survived a night of Jiu Jitsu practice.

Diet
For review, my week-day diet usually consists of:
Morning coffee, black, usually around 8 am.
Meal 1: 10 am-Noon; 4 eggs and a few ounces of meat (usually beef).
Meal 2: 2-4 pm; 0.5-1 pounds of beef.
Meal 3: 6-7 pm: 1.5-2 pounds of beef. Sometimes finished off with a couple tablespoons of heavy cream that I whip up or some cheese.

My diet has the same general composition on the weekends, but the timing of things is less regular.

I’m probably going to drop back to 2 meals a day soon. I’ve been doing 3 a day for a while to try to put on a few pounds (literally just a few, like 3 or 4), so I’ll drop back to two in a bit to see if it sticks.

I’ve also been battling some upper respiratory crud for most of this time (an early Christmas gift from my son), which I think may have slanted me into a slightly more stressed version of my normal baseline. It should become pretty clear how that might affect things by the end of this.

Training
My training for this period can be found in my training log.

Data
So what did the CGM show? One loooong line of gently rolling hills and valleys, with an average glucose of 87, which translates to a HbA1c of 4.6 .

While my food intake did influence my blood sugar a bit, it’s doesn’t appear to have done so very significantly. Major inflections in blood sugar were the result of my hormonal state, which was influenced by either exercise, mood, or sleep. When talking about hormonal state, I’m mostly talking about stress hormones. Adrenaline, cortisol, glucagon, growth hormone, etc. All those guys raise blood sugar. On the other end, you have insulin to bring it down. This is probably not news to anyone. Ok, I think I alluded to a toddler story earlier…

Data: Stress
Within the first few days I noticed that getting excited about anything (good or bad) caused a rise in blood sugar. Makes sense. A nice little cocktail or hormones gets released whenever you get excited since your body assumes that something interesting is about to happen (short term, we’re mostly talking about adrenaline).

We spent the first weekend of December at the in-laws. It was fine. A little boring, but fine. The problem is that they feed my son a bunch of garbage, and he turns into a little troll. I anticipate his troll-ness, and if I’m being honest, I probably work myself up about it a little. When we got home, the boy flipped out over something silly (well, silly to me, very serious for a toddler). I got irritated. I threw my hands up and walked away. Now, because I’m an adult, I promptly calmed the hell down. It’s not his fault. He’s tired, and his little brain isn’t working at full capacity. Then, because I’m a nerd, I promptly checked my blood sugar. It was 116. Now I had just checked it 30 minutes prior as a matter of habit, and it had been 87. Nothing else had happened that could have brought it up, except for my troll battle that had happened about 5 minutes ago. Keep in mind, since tissue glucose lags behind blood glucose, my actual blood glucose was probably a higher. Then, ten minutes later, I checked it again. It was 77. Obviously, my body had seen my blood glucose (which had probably gotten into the low 120’s) as outrageously high (I normally run in the low/mid 80’s when I’m just chilling out), and had dumped a little insulin to bring it down. So, over the course of 15-20 minutes, my blood glucose went up by roughly 30 mg/dl, and then down by roughly 40 mg/dl, based purely on changing emotional state (read: hormones).

It’s also worth noting that I did an A+A session about thirty minutes later, and my blood glucose never got over 95. I now have quantifiable proof that a toddler tantrum is substantially more stressful than heavy snatches (for me) o_O.

Each dot correlates with with a spot check, each number correlates with one dot, the line correlates to the 15 minute automatic checks that the sensor takes. The 116 occurred between 5 and 6 pm, and then I worked out between 6 and 7 pm.

Screen Shot 2018-12-11 at 9.15.51 AM.png
I also could tell that I generally trended a little higher on days when I felt under-rested/under-recovered. Baseline was a little elevated, exercise responses were a little elevated, everything was just about 5-10 mg/dl higher. The last week and a half of this two weeks were actually more stressful than normal (with a few extra rough days thrown in), so I think I can safely say that high 80's is almost the highest my average glucose will get over a period of weeks, although there was a few individual days where my average was around 90.

Data: Exercise
Now let’s talk about exercise, which was the most consistent, predictable source of significant fluctuations for my blood sugar. The idea is pretty simple, and we can assume that most, if not all, of what happens metabolically during exercise is mediated by stress hormones. The muscles break down glycogen for glucose. The liver breaks down glycogen in order to put more glucose in the blood, so that the muscles don’t have to break down as much glycogen. Once the stress hormones go away, insulin takes the blood glucose back down, often below pre-exercise levels. That is my understanding of the process.

Typically, my blood glucose would jump up to the 90-110 range during exercise. The more stressful the exercise, the greater the increase in blood glucose.

My most consistent training sessions are my morning A+A sessions. Typically, my blood sugar goes up to around 105-110 for the duration of the session, then in comes back down soon after. However, I had two sessions that were non-standard. The first was that evening session I talked about, after my son had a meltdown. I don’t usually train later in the day, even though I know my training does often feel better if I train later. It’s a schedule thing, though. I want to make sure my training happens, therefore I start warming up about 10 minutes after I wake up. It’s also worth noting that my sleep is often not ideal during the week. On Dec 2nd, after a relaxed, sleepy weekend, in the evening, in a fed state, my blood glucose leveled off at 95 during a normal A+A session. This is 10-15 mg/dl less than my norm, which typically occurs in a mildly sleep deprived, totally cold, fasted state. Safe to say, that training session felt really good, too.

Also worth noting was my Dec 4th session, when my blood glucose leveled off at 115 during a normal A+A session. Why so high? The night of the 2nd I got very little sleep (I tend to pay for sleep loss two days after it happens), and I was able to sleep in on the 4th. It’s safe to say that my body was in serious “recovery” mode. If I was still tracking HRV, I probably would have been around a 4/10-parasympathetic. It wasn’t the best time for my body to train, but it was the best time for my schedule, so I pushed ahead. Not only did it feel more stressful than normal, but my blood glucose reflected it.

By the time I thought of spinning up my Elite HRV app, it was too late to get much data from it (it takes a few days to calibrate), but I would definitely like to run HRV alongside a CGM next time and see what I can see.

This a tracing from November 30 that shows normal inflections for a kettlebell A+A session between 6 and 7 am, followed by a jog to class. I also jogged back from class around 4 pm.
Screen Shot 2018-12-11 at 9.23.16 AM.png


I finally made it to BJJ this week, on Dec 10. I almost didn’t, but I had already been away from it for a week and a half. No fun. So I made sure to go, and I’m very glad that I did…

Screen Shot 2018-12-11 at 9.27.53 AM.png

This was, by far, the highest my blood glucose ever got. Unfortunately, I don’t even know how high it actually was, because I forgot to bring my strips to actually check my blood. A normal BJJ class consists of a 10 minute warm up, 30 minutes of drills and techniques (which aren’t very intense), and then 20 minutes of open roll where we change partners every few minutes. Open roll can be relaxed and thoughtful when your rolling with someone who isn’t as good as you, or someone who’s way better than you and is taking it easy. If you’re rolling with someone who’s about as good as you, or a little bit better, it’s a fight for your life (so to speak). Very stressful emotionally, mentally, and physically.

There's a limit to how many picture files I can attach to each post...
 
Data: Food and Fasting

Take a look at the following two blood glucose tracings. Specifically, the first 18 hours of each one. One of them is of a normal day, one of them is the last 18 hours of a 26 hour fast (the asterisks just note an actual blood draw).

Screen Shot 2018-12-11 at 9.32.00 AM.png

Screen Shot 2018-12-11 at 9.29.59 AM.png

The bottom graph is the fasting day. Both graphs have two exercise inflections in it (I jog about a mile to/from class), and the general trends are about the same. This was one of the really neat things I saw. There’s not that big of a difference between a fed or fasted state for me, assuming stress and activity levels remain constant. The biggest difference I did see was that my glucose didn’t get quite as high in response to exercise. My AM jog to class didn’t cause as much of a jump, and I did a bit of an experiment right after I got home. I did three sets of 15 kettlebell swings. Normally that kind of work would give me a sensor reading up around 110 mg/dl, but I only got up to 102 on the sensor. I imagine this is what things would look like if I dropped my protein intake and did more of a keto approach. Less of a glucose response to stressors. I think the extra protein allows my body to be a little more generous with the glucose. Maybe that’s good, maybe it’s not.

I will point out, based on the fact that I can reliably get my fasting blood glucose over 100 (granted, that’s in response to exercise), I could qualify as pre-diabetic. I don’t know how many doctors would give that diagnosis when my average blood glucose is 87 and my normal fasting glucose is around 80-85, but it still technically meets the diagnostic criteria. That being said, that diagnostic criteria assumes that a measured fasting glucose >100 indicates a fasting glucose that is consistently >100, and is based on the study of a population that is very insulin resistant and, by definition, has poor blood glucose control. I don’t see my own blood glucose response as being pathological. I think it’s kind of neat that my body can just turn my glucose levels up or down as needed, assuming I ate some time within the last day.

Data: HbA1c
So why did I want to get a CGM in the first place, besides general nerdiness? Because I wanted to figure out what the deal was with my HbA1c. I’m going to explain how the HbA1c test works, so if you already know, skip the next two paragraphs.

Hemoglobin (Hb) is in your red blood cells (RBC’s). Glucose floats around in your blood, and gets into your RBC’s, where it chemically interacts with Hb. Essentially, the glucose sticks to the Hb. This is a normal, random chemical reaction called glycation. Glycation happens at a very reliable rate. It happens to pretty much all the proteins in your blood. Theoretically, we could measure glycation of albumin, sex hormone binding globulin, or any other protein. The two ways to affect glycation rates are 1) increase or decrease glucose levels, and 2) increase or decrease the amount of time the protein spends in the blood (if a protein is in the blood longer, it will react with more glucose molecules and get more glycated). If a protein is highly glycated, we know it’s been in a high-glucose environment for a normal time, it’s been in a normal glucose environment for a long time, or some mix of the two.

We measure the glycation of Hb because your RBC’s live for about 90-120 days. There are plenty of other proteins that live for predictable lengths of time, but 90-120 days is useful for diabetes monitoring. You get your HbA1c every three months when you see your doctor; simple. We’ve collected enough data that we can look at how glycated your Hb, assume that we’re looking at your 90 day average, and work backwards to see what your average blood glucose levels have been. Now, it’s not ideal. If you’re a poorly controlled, insulin dependent diabetic with a lot unhealthy highs and lows, your HbA1c can look alright. But anyone on insulin should also be checking their blood sugar multiple times a day, anyways. It’s usually a good lab test for telling us how someone’s doing in a very general sense.

So what’s the big deal with my HbA1c? Well, my last one was 5.5. The one before that was 5.4. The one before that (pre-carnivore) was 5.0. Now, 5.0 gives me an average blood glucose of 97. Not bad. I was doing 16:8 time restricted feeding, with one large serving of starch per day, and otherwise keeping carbs to a minimum (with the exception of an irresistible sugary treat 2-3x/week, because sugar is like crack and starch is a gateway drug, at least for me). I go carnivore, and my “average” jumps up from 97 to about 110. What the hell!?!? Having a HbA1c of 5.7 (average blood glucose=117) meets diagnostic criteria for pre-diabetes, for crying out loud!! So what happened? Did the near total elimination of carbohydrate from my diet result in occasional bouts of raging hyperglycemia?

No. Obviously. As I stated my average blood glucose over 2 weeks was 87, which translates into a HbA1c of 4.6. Definitely not pre-diabetic. What gives?

Let’s go back to the formula. What causes glycation to increase? Either an increase in glucose levels, or an increase in time spent at those glucose levels. I feel pretty confident in saying that my glucose levels decreased. That means that the time must have increased. In other words, my RBC’s are hanging around for considerably longer than expected, allowing the Hb to get more glycated than usual. Why would that be?

It could be for a variety of reasons. For instance, the spleen is primarily responsible for clearing out old, beat up RBC’s, so maybe my spleen shut down (people without spleens have terrible HbA1c’s). Doesn’t seem likely. There’s another explanation, though. Oxidative stress. RBC’s are exposed to pretty high levels of oxidative stress. This is one of the ways that they get beat up (besides getting smashed through capillaries). Theoretically, if we reduce systemic oxidative stress, we could extend RBC life span, and “artificially” elevate HbA1c. How would we know if we reduced oxidative stress? Well, the most obvious way would be to look at inflammation. Oxidative stress is a major cause of inflammation, so if it’s reduced, inflammation ought to come down, too. Well, we know the carnivore diet reduces inflammation in most people…So now things are coming together. Carnivore diet -> reduced oxidative stress -> longer RBC life span -> more time for Hb to get glycated -> artificially elevated HbA1c.

Neat.

To be fair, I’m not hating on the HbA1c test. It was made for use in diabetic patients, who have notoriously high levels of oxidative stress. The assumed RBC life span for someone with metabolic dysfunction is pretty solid. The test is totally valid when applied to the patient population it was designed for. Turns out, context matters. Who knew!?!?

So what can I pull from this?
  1. Stress matters for metabolic health. A lot.
  2. My levels of oxidative stress likely went down when I changed my diet. Either that or my spleen turned off. Because, despite my average blood glucose levels going down with the carnivore transition, and my HbA1c went up. This indicates a significant increase in RBC life span, for some reason or another.
  3. I need to watch out how I apply HbA1c to healthy people in the future (you know, when I grow up, and have patients). I mean, I don't expect an error of over 15% in everybody, but if someone looks healthy, has otherwise good labs, and has an HbA1c of, say, 5.4? Maybe I shouldn’t sweat it. A 5.4 in someone who obviously isn’t healthy, on the other hand, is something I’m going to keep an eye on. Again, it would appear that clinical context is an important part of individualized treatment. Who woulda thunk?
  4. Not sure when I’ll get another sensor and run through the process again, but when I do:
    • I think I’ll spin up my Elite HRV app again and see what connections I can draw
    • If I get a Keto Mojo monitor from Santa this year, I would also like to take a look at what my ketones are doing
    • I would like to do the next run at a time when I’m at my normal, healthy baseline for the majority of the two-week period, instead of hacking like a smoker and abnormally stressed out over school for a large portion of it
That’s what I got. But what do I know, I’m just a pre-diabetic knucklehead who’s going to die of colon cancer any day now…
 
Last edited:
Data: Food and Fasting

Take a look at the following two blood glucose tracings. Specifically, the first 18 hours of each one. One of them is of a normal day, one of them is the last 18 hours of a 26 hour fast (the asterisks just note an actual blood draw).

View attachment 7201

View attachment 7200

The bottom graph is the fasting day. Both graphs have two exercise inflections in it (I jog about a mile to/from class), and the general trends are about the same. This was one of the really neat things I saw. There’s not that big of a difference between a fed or fasted state for me, assuming stress and activity levels remain constant. The biggest difference I did see was that my glucose didn’t get quite as high in response to exercise. My AM jog to class didn’t cause as much of a jump, and I did a bit of an experiment right after I got home. I did three sets of 15 kettlebell swings. Normally that kind of work would give me a sensor reading up around 110 mg/dl, but I only got up to 102 on the sensor. I imagine this is what things would look like if I dropped my protein intake and did more of a keto approach. Less of a glucose response to stressors. I think the extra protein allows my body to be a little more generous with the glucose. Maybe that’s good, maybe it’s not.

I will point out, based on the fact that I can reliably get my fasting blood glucose over 100 (granted, that’s in response to exercise), I could qualify as pre-diabetic. I don’t know how many doctors would give that diagnosis when my average blood glucose is 87 and my normal fasting glucose is around 80-85, but it still technically meets the diagnostic criteria. That being said, that diagnostic criteria assumes that a measured fasting glucose >100 indicates a fasting glucose that is consistently >100, and is based on the study of a population that is very insulin resistant and, by definition, has poor blood glucose control. I don’t see my own blood glucose response as being pathological. I think it’s kind of neat that my body can just turn my glucose levels up or down as needed, assuming I ate some time within the last day.

Data: HbA1c
So why did I want to get a CGM in the first place, besides general nerdiness? Because I wanted to figure out what the deal was with my HbA1c. I’m going to explain how the HbA1c test works, so if you already know, skip the next two paragraphs.

Hemoglobin (Hb) is in your red blood cells (RBC’s). Glucose floats around in your blood, and gets into your RBC’s, where it chemically interacts with Hb. Essentially, the glucose sticks to the Hb. This is a normal, random chemical reaction called glycation. Glycation happens at a very reliable rate. It happens to pretty much all the proteins in your blood. Theoretically, we could measure glycation of albumin, sex hormone binding globulin, or any other protein. The two ways to affect glycation rates are 1) increase or decrease glucose levels, and 2) increase or decrease the amount of time the protein spends in the blood (if a protein is in the blood longer, it will react with more glucose molecules and get more glycated). If a protein is highly glycated, we know it’s been in a high-glucose environment for a normal time, it’s been in a normal glucose environment for a long time, or some mix of the two.

We measure the glycation of Hb because your RBC’s live for about 90-120 days. There are plenty of other proteins that live for predictable lengths of time, but 90-120 days is useful for diabetes monitoring. You get your HbA1c every three months when you see your doctor; simple. We’ve collected enough data that we can look at how glycated your Hb, assume that we’re looking at your 90 day average, and work backwards to see what your average blood glucose levels have been. Now, it’s not ideal. If you’re a poorly controlled, insulin dependent diabetic with a lot unhealthy highs and lows, your HbA1c can look alright. But anyone on insulin should also be checking their blood sugar multiple times a day, anyways. It’s usually a good lab test for telling us how someone’s doing in a very general sense.

So what’s the big deal with my HbA1c? Well, my last one was 5.5. The one before that was 5.4. The one before that (pre-carnivore) was 5.0. Now, 5.0 gives me an average blood glucose of 97. Not bad. I was doing 16:8 time restricted feeding, with one large serving of starch per day, and otherwise keeping carbs to a minimum (with the exception of an irresistible sugary treat 2-3x/week, because sugar is like crack and starch is a gateway drug, at least for me). I go carnivore, and my “average” jumps up from 97 to about 110. What the hell!?!? Having a HbA1c of 5.7 (average blood glucose=117) meets diagnostic criteria for pre-diabetes, for crying out loud!! So what happened? Did the near total elimination of carbohydrate from my diet result in occasional bouts of raging hyperglycemia?

No. Obviously. As I stated my average blood glucose over 2 weeks was 87, which translates into a HbA1c of 4.6. Definitely not pre-diabetic. What gives?

Let’s go back to the formula. What causes glycation to increase? Either an increase in glucose levels, or an increase in time spent at those glucose levels. I feel pretty confident in saying that my glucose levels decreased. That means that the time must have increased. In other words, my RBC’s are hanging around for considerably longer than expected, allowing the Hb to get more glycated than usual. Why would that be?

It could be for a variety of reasons. For instance, the spleen is primarily responsible for clearing out old, beat up RBC’s, so maybe my spleen shut down (people without spleens have terrible HbA1c’s). Doesn’t seem likely. There’s another explanation, though. Oxidative stress. RBC’s are exposed to pretty high levels of oxidative stress. This is one of the ways that they get beat up (besides getting smashed through capillaries). Theoretically, if we reduce systemic oxidative stress, we could extend RBC life span, and “artificially” elevate HbA1c. How would we know if we reduced oxidative stress? Well, the most obvious way would be to look at inflammation. Oxidative stress is a major cause of inflammation, so if it’s reduced, inflammation ought to come down, too. Well, we know the carnivore diet reduces inflammation in most people…So now things are coming together. Carnivore diet -> reduced oxidative stress -> longer RBC life span -> more time for Hb to get glycated -> artificially elevated HbA1c.

Neat.

To be fair, I’m not hating on the HbA1c test. It was made for use in diabetic patients, who have notoriously high levels of oxidative stress. The assumed RBC life span for someone with metabolic dysfunction is pretty solid. The test is totally valid when applied to the patient population it was designed for. Turns out, context matters. Who knew!?!?

So what can I pull from this?
  1. Stress matters for metabolic health. A lot.
  2. My levels of oxidative stress likely went down when I changed my diet. Either that or my spleen turned off. Because, despite my average blood glucose levels going down with the carnivore transition, and my HbA1c went up. This indicates a significant increase in RBC life span, for some reason or another.
  3. I need to watch out how I apply HbA1c to healthy people in the future (you know, when I grow up, and have patients). I mean, I don expect an error of XXXXX in everybody, but if someone looks healthy, has otherwise good labs, and has an HbA1c of, say, 5.4? Maybe I shouldn’t sweat it. A 5.4 in someone who obviously isn’t healthy, on the other hand, is something I’m going to keep an eye on. Again, it would appear that clinical context is an important part of individualized treatment. Who woulda thunk?
  4. Not sure when I’ll get another sensor and run through the process again, but when I do:
    • I think I’ll spin up my Elite HRV app again and see what connections I can draw
    • If I get a Keto Mojo monitor from Santa this year, I would also like to take a look at what my ketones are doing
    • I would like to do the next run at a time when I’m at my normal, healthy baseline for the majority of the two-week period, instead of hacking like a smoker and abnormally stressed out over school for a large portion of it
That’s what I got. But what do I know, I’m just a pre-diabetic knucklehead who’s going to die of colon cancer any day now…
Pretty cool analysis Matt. Thanks for sharing.

And we all gotta go from something....
 
Matt - if you paired your HbA1c test with a C-reactive protein test would that add any insight? Not sure how sensitive CRP is for relatively low level inflammation.

Really interesting analysis and good to know a toddler tantrum is worse than a KB snatch session but not quite as bad as fighting for your life....

Also starts to show just how bad the impact of low grade stress on health might be - it really underpins the idea of 'sh*t life syndrome' and its impact on people - we now have a ton of people with T2D in the UK and many of them don't conform to the high BMI stereotype.

Last point - Jordan Peterson credits a beef only diet (and really that means 100% beef) as causing remission of autoimmune diseases in his family, although I've not seen a sensible scientific analysis of why that might be the case.
 
Glycation happens at a very reliable rate....This indicates a significant increase in RBC life span, for some reason or another.

Very cool stuff and tons of food for thought...

Maybe Glycation rate/throughput is a determinant of RBC lifespan. Is it even possible that RBC glycation has an efficiency rating based on number of chemical reactions the particular cell has experienced?

Are ketones transported in a similar manner?

Is this the only way glucose is transported to working muscle?
 
Kids, who'd have 'em.

Stress matters for metabolic health. A lot

Interesting that you can correlate a stressor and subsequent release of glucose like that going about general events in your life.
Chronic stress?? Must have such an impact. @Snowman, thanks for posting, very revealing.

Stay off the haribo!!
 
Matt - if you paired your HbA1c test with a C-reactive protein test would that add any insight?
I think so. I think CRP can be a very useful marker to track, and it can be an early indicator that things are not as they should be. I've had mine done for my last two blood draws, and it wasn't measurable (less than .2) either time, which is right where I want it. I didn't have the foresight to get a pre-carnivore CRP, so I don't know what it was before. If it had been higher, that would really have supported my theory about reduced oxidative stress, but who knows. CRP is a little tricky, though. It tells you if you have inflammation, but not why. If you're developing a cold, healing from an injury, or otherwise dealing with some sort of physical insult, CRP will likely be elevated. In other words, having a low CRP when you "feel normal" is a good sign. Having a single high CRP, especially if there's something else going on, doesn't tell you much. If you have five elevated CRP's in a row, then maybe you can't blame it on the colds anymore ;)

Jordan Peterson credits a beef only diet (and really that means 100% beef) as causing remission of autoimmune diseases in his family, although I've not seen a sensible scientific analysis of why that might be the case
1) There have been quite of few cases of people managing autoimmune issues, in part or in full, using a carnivore diet, nearly carnivore diet, or animal based keto diet with lots of fasting.
2) I have no idea why that is o_O. My theory is that it "calms" the immune system by reducing systemic inflammation, but that's really just a guess at this point.
That's actually what really brought the diet onto my radar in the first place. It seemed like a good last ditch effort for controlling autoimmune issues. I say "last ditch," not because of a lack of effectiveness, but because of the difficulty involved in actually implementing the treatment. We don't have the data to say how effective it is, but it seems to be pretty reliable. The main reason I tested it out was to see how hard it would be for someone to stick to and use as a treatment. That was in January...

Is it even possible that RBC glycation has an efficiency rating based on number of chemical reactions the particular cell has experienced?

Are ketones transported in a similar manner?

Is this the only way glucose is transported to working muscle?
You bring up a good point that I should probably explain a little more clearly. The glucose that get stuck to Hb doesn't end up getting used as fuel. Glucose is floating around freely in the blood plasma, ready to get pulled in by whatever cells need it (ketones are the same way). The RBC's are bathed in the glucose-rich plasma, and take up glucose to use for fuel. Think of a RBC as a sack of water that's floating around in more water. The concentration of glucose inside the RBC ends up being very similar to the concentration of glucose outside (in the plasma). Most of the glucose that goes into the RBC's gets used to fuel cellular processes, but some of it sticks to the Hb. That's the glycation that we measure.
The more glucose Hb molecules are exposed to, the more will stick to them. This glycation doesn't really serve a useful purpose for the cell, it's just a natural by-product of glucose and proteins co-existing in the same space. Back to our question, if we get lots of glycated Hb (a high HbA1c), we have to ask ourselves if it happened because there was a lot of glucose in the RBC's (and therefore the blood plasma), or if it happened because the RBC was in the plasma for a really long time.


Something that's probably worth pointing out is that this a very small, simple window into some very complex physiology. As you can see, I've made what I consider to be appropriate assumptions, such as assuming that a high blood glucose is caused by high stress and the related hormones. All I really know is that the two happen together. The rest is an educated guess. It's kind of like trying to figure out how a top secret stealth jet works by looking through cracks in the hangar walls. Even if you can look at things from a few different angles, there's no guarantee you'll be right when you put it all together. Quite the opposite, really o_O
 
A quick Google shows that stress raising blood sugar seems pretty common. That's news to me and good to know.

-S-
 
Status
Closed Thread. (Continue Discussion of This Topic by Starting a New Thread.)
Back
Top Bottom