Will going on a carnivore diet cause you to become a diabetic? In today's show, we're going to review 16 years of data using my own blood work, going back to 2008. Now, the impetus for this video is not to glorify and talk about my end-of-one experience necessarily, but I received several comments on a recent blood work analysis video, which I can link right here. And several people said, oh my gosh, you're in the pre-diabetic range when it comes to your hemoglobin A1c.
and you're justifying your diet, i.e. a carnivore diet. And as I mentioned in that video, yes, I've been mostly low-carb carnivore since 2020. But as I mentioned in that video, over the course of the summer in 2024, we got into sourdough bread making. I told you, we were making sourdough pancakes, sourdough pizza, sourdough bread like crazy.
And because my hemoglobin A1c increased, From my average around 5.1% up to 5.5, as I mentioned in that video, I am going to cut back on the sourdough bread making. Now, let's go back and just look at hemoglobin A1c changes for myself for the past 16 years. Okay, we're going to look at my blood work.
Now, I was just a young buck living in Denver, Colorado. Actually, I was in Boulder at this time. My hemoglobin A1c was 5.1% 16 years ago. As I just alluded to, I'm now 42 years old.
My A1C is 5.5%. At the time of my life in 2018, when I was the most strict keto and low-carbon doing fasting, prolonged fasting and all that, my A1C dropped down to 4.8%. So for all of you in the comments that are saying, see, the carnivore diet is causing you to be diabetic and you're rationalizing your dietary choices, even though you're on the path of developing diabetes, you're not. my A1C is bounced around by like 0.5 or 0.7 tenths of 1%.
Like we're not talking about a whole lot of swing here. Am I concerned about that? Not necessarily, because if you keep watching, we're going to talk about other more sensitive biomarkers than hemoglobin A1C, such as fructosamine, such as glycated albumin, such as 1,5-AHG.
These are new biomarkers that are more sensitive and specific than A1C. So before we go on, I just want to say thank you as always for being here. If you're enjoying the content, please hit that like button.
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and use the code podcast at checkout. So I'll put all that in the description below. Let's get back to blood work, shall we? Okay, so here we go. We have blood work from 2008. My glucose was 95 milligrams per deciliter.
Blood work in 2024. Blood glucose, 94 milligrams per deciliter. A1c in 2008, 5.1%. A1c in 2024, 5.5%. Now, as I did mention, I think from a metabolic perspective, the healthiest I ever was was between 2018 and 2020. I was very low carb. I was keto.
I was fasting a lot. I was also exercising a lot. And my fasting glucose was really quite low.
In this particular assay, this blood draw that I did in the spring of 2018, it was 83 milligrams per deciliter. My A1C was 4.9%. That being said, let's go and look at...
the C-reactive protein. This is what's kind of interesting. My C-reactive protein, not that this is high per se, was 0.49 milligrams per liter. As we recently reviewed, my C-reactive protein just several weeks ago was 0.2 milligrams per liter.
So it's cut in half. I think I'm arguably less inflamed, even though I've been eating historically a lot more meat. So again, I think if we look at this from an unbiased lens, this is an end of one experiment on myself. We're looking historically. And if we go back to 2008, you might wonder I was younger, arguably less inflamed.
I was exercising a lot. Back then I was having a mixed omnivorous style diet. Much less meat was consumed by myself in 2008. In fact, I was living in Boulder, Colorado.
Really. interested in a paleo style diet, having a lot of vegetables, a lot of grain type products. I had recently gotten into the raw food movement in 2006. My C-reactive protein was 0.62 milligrams per liter.
Again, in contrast, and this is what a lot of experts would say, well, if you eat meat, it's so inflammatory. Over time, you're going to get cancer. You're going to get colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer. There's all these challenges with red meat.
My C-reactive protein from just a couple of weeks ago, even though I'm 16 years older. Remember, inflammation increases as you age. It's called inflammation. My C-reactive protein is 0.2 milligrams per liter.
It's two-thirds less 16 years later. So you might wonder what other inflammatory-related biomarkers could be different some 16 years later. Let's look at my white blood cell count. I actually haven't even reviewed this.
I think it is quite interesting to see if I have less markers of potential chronic inflammation now. My white blood cell count when I was just a young buck 16 years ago was 7.2 units per liter. My white blood cell count now, just a couple weeks ago at 42 years old is 5.9.
So remember, as you get more inflamed, your white blood cells... counts, your WBC will increase as will your C-reactive protein. So for all the people that say, see, you're eating a carnivore diet. You're so inflamed. You're going to get cancer.
You're going to die. You're going to get all these chronic diseases. You're going to get diabetes.
Well, why is my C-reactive protein much lower now? Why is my white blood cell count lower compared to 16 years ago when I was in my twenties? Just for kicks, let's look at my WBC going back to 2018. When I told you I was probably from a metabolic health perspective, the healthiest I've ever been, my white blood cell count was six.
So again, over time, I've only eaten more and more meat since when this was drawn in 2008. And by all objective biomarkers related to metabolic health and inflammation outside of the fact that my A1C has creeped up a little bit, and I attribute that to honestly overdoing the sourdough bread products and pastries and things like that, because of sheer excitement, my daughter's an endurance athlete. We just love this stuff, which I know I'm going to cut back on. Markers of chronic inflammation are down. In 2018, my insulin was 2.8 international units per ML using the same markers. In 2024, my insulin was four.
So we're talking about a small increase, but a fasting insulin of four is really, really low. So fasting insulin of 2.8 is actually near the low end of the lab range. I mean, it's just 2.6. So again, if we're talking about metabolic health, I think fasting is obviously very effective. Now, the reason why I don't do as much fasting is because fasting is because if you look at pictures of me back in 2018, I just felt really weak.
I felt I was much more tired, felt weak and lethargic, and I feel like a much more resilient human now. That's why I don't do as much fasting. But clearly, you can see my triglycerides. I believe they were 30 in 2018 when I was doing a lot of fasting.
Yeah, 32 milligrams per deciliter. My triglycerides just a couple weeks ago, and I told you I admitted to eating a lot of sourdough products and bread type products. my triglycerides are 49 milligrams per deciliter.
So we're talking about a 19 point difference, still very low, you know, under 50 is ideal when it comes to fasting triglycerides. Now, you know, the thing that did increase is my LDL cholesterol. Although it, you know, it's interesting.
I don't have APOB on the 2018 report, but my LDL cholesterol was 115 in 2018, as I alluded to, and my diet was mostly an omnivorous style keto diet. with a lot of fasting baked into it. And that's why my triglycerides were really, really quite low. My LDL cholesterol has increased by about 50 points. But again, my ApoB to A1 ratio is 0.5.
So I'm really not concerned about my high LDL. Now, if we go back and look at my LDL in 2008, my LDL was 91 milligrams per deciliter. My HDL was 71 milligrams per deciliter. After having years of meat and...
all that, especially as of late, my HDL now is increased to 81 milligrams per deciliter. So again, I just provide this information because we have, you know, 16 years of data. There's a lot of experts and armchair experts in the comments telling me that I'm going to die of a heart attack and that I'm giving myself diabetes by having a more of a carnivorous style diet, even though I admitted to having a lot more sourdough bread products, especially over the course of the summer in 2024. So there you have it, 16 years of data to show that eating this way, relying heavily on animal products, raw dairy, full fat dairy, butter, lard, full fat milk, making my own yogurt at home. It hasn't caused all the chronic inflammation that the experts might say. It hasn't caused diabetes, my fasting insulin at four.
So anyway, I just, I wanted to share this with you. Hopefully you got some value from this video. And we're going to do a full video on the 1,5-AHG, the glycosylated albumin fructosamine, and how those are probably better than A1C. So definitely subscribe to the channel if you're not already so that you can learn a little bit more about those. If you want my updated blood work masterclass cheat sheet, please opt into the email list in the description below, and we'll catch you on a future video down the road.