When is it helpful to measure the insulin level in a person’s blood?
admin | Jan 04, 2011 | Comments 0
It’s rarely helpful to measure the amount of insulin in a person’s
blood. Suppose there are two people with the same normal fasting
blood glucose (less than 100 mg/dL.) But if we measure the amount
of insulin in their blood, we find that one of them has a much higher
insulin level than the other. What does that tell us? It tells us that the
person with the higher insulin level is more resistant to insulin than
the other person. The person who’s resistant to insulin needs to put
out more insulin in order to keep blood glucose levels normal.
Maybe the person with the higher insulin level is overweight or
more stressed, or maybe there’s another reason for the insulin resistance.
Measuring the insulin level in a person’s blood does not help
us to decide what to do for him or her. One of the problems with measuring insulin in the blood is that it can change so quickly from minute to minute throughout the day. Insulin levels change depending on when you last ate, what you ate, when you last exercised, and how stressed you are. Although some doctors like to measure insulin levels and make decisions based on the results, it rarely gives us useful information that we can’t get in other ways.
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