With the holidays fast approaching, that means we’ll all soon be inundated with cookies, pies and candy canes… i.e. SUGAR! Santa enjoys his, but at what cost?!?
Sugar has many synonyms: glucose, carbohydrates, fructose, and sucrose are some of them.
Here’s what matters to me and mine in MY practice.
We manage GLUCOSE with a blood panel. When we measure GLUCOSE this is what is measured in essence, all of the above .
We start with a minimum of 8 hours fasting, which gives us a better snapshot of current, but NOT recent glucose levels. This is a BIG distinction!
Second, we evaluate a three month average, known as A1C. This will smooth out three months and give an accurate level of where you tend to hover at in your glucose level.
My optimal level for you all is < 85 GLUCOSE. NOTE! This is NOT what you will discover as rated as “normal” in Labcorp, Quest, etc. Why? Well there are a couple of reasons.
- The lab typically measures sick people, which naturally is going to propel “normal” values higher in GLUCOSE.
- Further (and more nefariously), due to the sellability and profitability of pharmaceutical drugs, the trajectory of high sugar benefits a whole host of players in the medical system. Yes, I just put that out there. It’s real and we know it, I’ve witnessed it personally in MY PRACTICE.
I’ll close this conversation with this: there’s a bit of a nuance as well with GLUCOSE. It’s his less evaluated cousin: INSULIN. Yes, I measure this, too. It matters and can hide elevated glucose if it’s in overdrive.
The takeaway here is that this is yet another go-to for PREVENTION. Elevated insulin NOT typically measured can hide true elevations in GLUCOSE. Let’s not bury our heads in the sand and get after these twin demons which literally affect every mechanism of health in our biology.
How can I start with YOU?
This does not constitute medical advice in any way, if you have questions about your personal health situation contact Dr. Ziya OR other licensed medical provider.
