Blood test / markers to record before first ever 24 hour fasts

Thanks all to the great community here. I IF'd my way to fantastic weight loss a few years ago (when combined with a calorie deficit) and sporadically for health purposes I have practiced 16-8 IF for weeks at a time (whilst maintaining weight). I was in a conversation with an acquaintance who suggested that autophagy really kicks in around the 15 hour mark. That got me thinking - with my 16 hour-max fasts, was I truely seeing the full range of potential health benefits? So I'm planning on doing a 24 hour fast and it was suggested, before I proceed would be a fantastic opportunity to get some markers / blood / analysis down. As I am not in a position to ask which specifically they meant, I thought I would try this community. I would love to have some quantifiable data on how the fasts have affected or changed things in my body. I think a before and after could prove very interesting (regardless of whether there are any changes). The problem is, I don't know what to test for. The kind of terms that were mentioned were quite technical and I cannot remember them, however I believe blood glucose or something insulin resistance related was amongst them. Can anybody help?

Answer

Fasting blood glucose is something they can do in a blood test, but also something you can do yourself with a glucose meter / finger prick. HOWEVER, it’s not a great measure, because it can vary A LOT day to day depending on all kinds of things like stress level, how you slept, inflammation, etc. That test just provides a snapshot in time.

So, don’t worry about that one specifically, but do get your hemoglobin a1c checked. That measures the amount of glucose binding to certain blood cells that live for about 3 months, so it basically gives you your average blood glucose over the previous 3 months. That’s the standard marker for insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, pre-diabetes, and diabetes.

Edit: some great videos by this guy on metabolism, diet, fasting, etc - https://youtube.com/watch?v=qeGz0VKEGv0

Answer

Probably not useful. But the test you really want the score to is your fasting insulin level.

Lots of unhealthy people can have great fasting blood sugar scores, so they think they’re healthy. Oftentimes what’s happening is that, yes, the blood sugar is in spec, but that’s because the baseline insulin level has been having to creep up and up over the years to keep the blood sugar in spec. Different bodies have different abilities for this, but at some point the insulin production is maxed out and can’t keep up. Only then will you start seeing poor fasting blood sugar scores. But of course the problem has been prevalent and ongoing for years by the time it’s normally detected