I learned from a recent conference on diabetes that every 7 seconds, someone in the world dies from the complications of diabetes. The speaker was quite glib about it—his slide was filled to the brim with startling statistics such as this and he wasn’t giving this the weight and gravity that it was due. But it struck me like a bolt of lightning…every 7 seconds, someone worldwide is dying from a disease that in large part is preventable and reversible.
To say we’re in an epidemic of diabetes is an understatement. I’m not suggesting that we’re in DEFCON 5 over this either, but knowing that type 2 diabetes is preventable and in most cases reversible, I feel it my duty to help you and your loved ones identify the early signs of diabetes. The earlier you catch diabetes in its course, the better!
This brings me to the root of the problem; after all, functional medicine is all about the roots of illness. In traditional medicine, we wait to diagnose “pre-diabetes” once your fasting blood sugar ranges from 100 to 125. Once your fasting blood sugar goes over 125, then Western medicine decides to pull the trigger and give you the diagnosis of “diabetes”. Worse yet, Western medicine sometimes just pulls a Hemoglobin A1C as part of your annual lab work. The A1C is useful to tell physicians what your blood sugar average has been over the past 3 months, but is it useful in the diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes?
The answer is an emphatic “NO”! If you’re waiting for a Hemoglobin A1C or a fasting blood sugar to diagnose pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes, then you’re waiting too long. That horse is well out of the barn by then.
In functional medicine, we emphasize diagnosing conditions earlier—being preventive and intervening when the likelihood of disease reversal is high. So, to this end, I’m going to share two tidbits with you that will aid in an earlier diagnosis of type 2 diabetes.
- Look at your CHOLESTEROL levels. Your primary care doctor is likely looking at your cholesterol panel at least annually, but I bet he/she isn’t calculating one of the most important ratios when it comes to early diagnosis of prediabetes and type 2 diabetes—the ratio of TRIGLYCERIDES TO HDL. This is simple to do: just take your TRIGLYCERIDE number and divide it by your HDL number. If your total is anything over 3, watch out!
- Look at your FASTING INSULIN levels. Ask your primary care doctor to draw an insulin level on you once you’ve been fasting for 12 hours. This is especially important to do if your Triglyceride to HDL ratio was 2 or higher as described in the paragraph above. Once you get your insulin level back, you’ll see a “normal” reference range extending up to 26 or so—do not be lulled into a sense of security over this! The normal that I recommend you look for is an insulin of 5 or less.
If your insulin is over 5, then you’ve got problems, but no worries…you’re catching your insulin resistance early enough that you can take swift action through nutrition, supplementation, and exercise to turn that ship around before diabetes takes a strong foot-hold over your life.
These are just a couple of the diagnostic labs that we look at from a functional medicine perspective—please know that it is NOT an exhaustive list. Diabetes is more than just a “blood sugar problem”. It’s an INFLAMMATION problem and as such, we’ve got a lot of ways to measure your inflammation in your body so that we can intervene and help you achieve your best health yet!
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