Non-diabetic low insulin maybe not so good?

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circular
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Re: Non-diabetic low insulin maybe not so good?

Post by circular »

What two hour postprandial insulin levels are considered healthy? I'd like to try this, maybe once in my normal ketone range and again after a high carb meal and out of ketosis.

Life Extension also has DTC insulin lab, and my local lab has added a small raft of DTC tests that are cheaper than many other places. They just added insulin. So you may want to see if any local labs in your area are doing this too if you're in a DTC state in the US.
ApoE 3/4 > Thanks in advance for any responses made to my posts.
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Re: Non-diabetic low insulin maybe not so good?

Post by mike »

I need to read more on this, but it sounds like there can be different insulin levels in the brain and the rest of the body. Doesn't this mean that we would need to measure insulin inside the Blood Brain Barrier to understand how this is effecting the brain?
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circular
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Re: Non-diabetic low insulin maybe not so good?

Post by circular »

mike wrote:I need to read more on this, but it sounds like there can be different insulin levels in the brain and the rest of the body. Doesn't this mean that we would need to measure insulin inside the Blood Brain Barrier to understand how this is effecting the brain?
Given insulin’s multiple roles in the brain, the different levels between brain and periphery, potential BBB permeability, it seems we’re far from having a comprehensive understanding of one’s individual brain insulin status. I think we know that from an energetic standpoint (glucose metabolism) there can be insulin resistance in the brain even with insulin sensitivity peripherally, and that apoe4 is susceptible to this (?), but does that mean the insulin is also ineffective in its other roles in the brain. And just to have a little twisted fun with this, how might the brain microbiome affect insulin’s actions in the brain?
ApoE 3/4 > Thanks in advance for any responses made to my posts.
Anna
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Re: Non-diabetic low insulin maybe not so good?

Post by Anna »

Just throwing another study into the mix, which supports the idea that low insulin may not be such a good thing:

Low fasting serum insulin and dementia in nondiabetic women followed for 34 years, Neurology, July 31, 2018
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6093770/

Our results confirmed a nonlinear association in a female population, with high risk at low insulin values that was not attributable to preclinical dementia or impaired insulin secretion. This condition suggests a new pathway to dementia, which differs from the metabolic pathway involving diabetes mellitus.

In this population-based study of middle-aged women free of diabetes mellitus at baseline, the 34-year risk of dementia was more than doubled in women with initially low fasting serum insulin compared to women with medium insulin values.

We derived a value of 10.3 mIU/L for the approximate inflection point, below which the risk of dementia is increased.
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circular
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Re: Non-diabetic low insulin maybe not so good?

Post by circular »

Wow, thanks for that Anna! I’m thrilled that the human body seems to exhibit such paradox. Otherwise I’d wonder how we inhabit such a paradoxical universe.

I leave it to the better citizen scientists here to critique the study, but it’s quite large and looks good to little ol’ me.

One thing I wonder is whether one can be non-diabetic, low insulin and also not producing ketones? Could these subjects have somehow accomplished that and thus missed the brain benefits of ketones? I can’t quite see how that could be, so for now I take it to be support that low fasting insulin is more than meets the eye.
ApoE 3/4 > Thanks in advance for any responses made to my posts.
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Re: Non-diabetic low insulin maybe not so good?

Post by mike »

Very interesting - from the discussion:

"The phenotype associated with low insulin was characterized by low body weight, low blood pressure and heart rate, and low values of glucose, triglycerides, and leptin. These associations were not explained by cigarette smoking or high physical activity, lifestyle variables that were also associated with low insulin in both this study and previous studies.31,32 Twenty years ago, Bonora et al.33 described a U-shaped risk curve for fasting insulin and coronary heart disease in a cross-sectional study. They found similar correlates with low insulin as demonstrated here and postulated that this condition, despite high insulin sensitivity, presented a state of insufficient cell insulinization, promoting the development of atherosclerosis. If low serum insulin is a marker for low insulin in the brain, it may, through its role as a mitogenic growth factor, cause impaired neuronal functioning, cell death, and dementia.3,7 This interpretation is supported by recent in vivo clinical results showing that low levels of fasting blood insulin were associated with increased β-amyloid deposition and neurodegeneration in nondiabetic, cognitively normal older adults.34 Consistent with these findings, the association between low insulin and dementia described here was particularly strong for VD and for AD without diabetes comorbidity, i.e., when the alternative pathway through diabetes mellitus was censored. Although insulin concentrations in the CSF are generally well below serum levels, the ratio varies between 1% and 10%, depending on weight status and other factors that regulate the transport across the blood-brain barrier8 and influence brain insulin levels in addition to absolute levels of circulating insulin. However, sensitivity analyses showed that none of the covariates that correlated with serum insulin explained the reported associations with dementia endpoints, underlining the fundamental importance of insulin for the etiology of dementia."

Interesting - otherwise perfectly healthy... And this is the first I've heard of the difference between serum and CSF insulin concentrations. They said it was "proportional" - but I'm still unclear how they can directly correlate serum to CSF insulin levels, if the ratio can vary...
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Re: Non-diabetic low insulin maybe not so good?

Post by Kenny4/4 »

Having too low a level of insulin or even IGF will increase your risk of Dimentia !

Dr Bredesen discusses this in his book as Type 2 atrophic Dementia. Dr. Gundry points out that the people at greatest risk in the Framingham Study were low BMI Women with high adiponectin levels. Obesity in Mid life (insulin resistance)is associated with a direct correlation to Alzheimers but so is underweight (low insulin). Obesity is protective of Alzheimers in Old age and underweight is correlated with Alzheimers in the old aged. Studies have shown a low Total Cholesterol (under 150 ) is also associated with an increased risk of Alzheimers.

One could argue that the correlations above are the tail wagging the dog and circular reasoning as Alzheimers may be the cause of them and not the other way around but a lot of these variables are years before the disease so that negates that argument. My thoughts and guesses are -keep your mind/body sensetive to insulin but don't get it too low,there is a U shaped curve to everything and nothing is all good or all bad.

I have begun to rethink and change my Ghandi like Alzheimers stratagies to more robust ones.....with moderation of course
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Re: Non-diabetic low insulin maybe not so good?

Post by troy »

I hope you don't mind me digging up this old post.

I am a 32 y.o male, recently found out I was an E3/E4 and joined this forum. With the help of my doctor, I tried to replicate the blood tests suggested by Bredesen. One of my numbers of concern fell in the area of low insulin and search results led me to this thread. My fasting insulin was 1.3 (~14 hour fast, non-ketogenic diet). Most of my other related numbers we okay. Glucose - 77 mg/dL, hbA1c - 4.6, low neutrophil count - 918. Any thoughts on if/how to address this. Type 1.5 diabetes also came up in my search but seems less probable.

Thanks!
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Re: Non-diabetic low insulin maybe not so good?

Post by seachangehealthcoach »

troy wrote:I hope you don't mind me digging up this old post.

I am a 32 y.o male, recently found out I was an E3/E4 and joined this forum. With the help of my doctor, I tried to replicate the blood tests suggested by Bredesen. One of my numbers of concern fell in the area of low insulin and search results led me to this thread. My fasting insulin was 1.3 (~14 hour fast, non-ketogenic diet). Most of my other related numbers we okay. Glucose - 77 mg/dL, hbA1c - 4.6, low neutrophil count - 918. Any thoughts on if/how to address this. Type 1.5 diabetes also came up in my search but seems less probable.

Thanks!
Hi Troy!
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Re: Non-diabetic low insulin maybe not so good?

Post by Julie G »

I am a 32 y.o male, recently found out I was an E3/E4 and joined this forum. With the help of my doctor, I tried to replicate the blood tests suggested by Bredesen. One of my numbers of concern fell in the area of low insulin and search results led me to this thread. My fasting insulin was 1.3 (~14 hour fast, non-ketogenic diet). Most of my other related numbers we okay. Glucose - 77 mg/dL, hbA1c - 4.6, low neutrophil count - 918. Any thoughts on if/how to address this. Type 1.5 diabetes also came up in my search but seems less probable.
Dr. Bredesen is not concerned about those with low levels of insulin who also have low levels of glucose. Your metabolic health appears very healthy to me- kudos.
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