Testing Insulin at Home – September 6th, 2015

 

Nutritional Endocrinology Practitioner Training (NEPT)
Clinical Pearl
September 6th, 2015

Testing Insulin at Home

As you know, if you’ve been through the blood sugar balancing module (module 12, also known as IRSPT – the Insulin Resistance Solution Practitioner Training), testing blood sugar alone may not give you the full clinical picture of a client’s status. Testing fasting insulin contributes more, but post-prandial insulin (after eating) is a very useful comparator.

Some people have perfectly normal, even optimal, fasting insulin levels, but they experience wild swings in response to meals.

While it’s simple and inexpensive to test glucose at home and chart your clients’ readings, testing insulin is more complex and costly.

I recently found a home insulin test kit and ordered two of them to try. They are $35 each (compared to 25¢ for each glucose test!).

What I plan to do is test on myself and let you know how it goes. I’ll test once before eating (fasting insulin) and then again at around 45 – 60 minutes after eating. I’ll see what the response is compared to glucose, which I will test at the same time.

Post-prandial insulin is a good test to differentiate type 2 diabetes, which is due to high levels of insulin production and cellular resistance, from either LADA (latent autoimmune diabetes adult onset) or end stage type 2 where the pancreas is burned out.

Below you’ll find the link to the test kits, in case you want to try it.

http://www.americanscreeningcorp.com/Search.aspx?k=insulin