I met Steve this morning who travelled down to see us after viewing an Ivor Cummins podcast with Gabor Erdosi and myself. He wanted a kraft curve.
“ I have a back story!” Steve said. I love back stories!
3 years ago Steve went for a routine medical as part of his company benefits.
He went to a cardiologist in a well known street in London.
He is completely well and asymptomatic.
Physical exam- all normal. Bloods – all normal. ECG, threadmill stress test and Echo all normal.
For some reason the cardiologist says lets do a calcium score. It comes back at 4000. (off the scale according to Steve and the cardiologist).
This leads to an angiogram. He has 90% narrowing in all arteries.
He has a quadruple bypass .
The good news is he feels the same as he did before the operation.
“What now?” was Steves question.
“if you get any symptoms , come back, and we could do an annual ECG?”
“But why in a non diabetic, non smoker, non hypertensive, non obese and no family history are my arteries clogged up? And what is to stop the new plumbing blocking up?”
There was no advice to this question, which I would not have answered 5 years ago.
Steve is a bright engineer who has gone on a journey of root cause, inflammation and metabolic health. Ivor Cummins “Eat Rich and Live Long” was his first book. He has now read 35 books and one hundred papers. Including Krafts original book on the subject in the 1970s.
Steve went low Carbohydrate / Keto for last 2.5 years. Struggling to shift the last bit of visceral fat. He wanted to know what his insulin was doing. But this should be really low having been on Keto over last few years.
Yes is the answer, but would have loved to have measured your insulin resistance before you had the bypass!
No one in London does kraft curves! This was a big surprise to the engineer who spent his whole career collecting data and measuring “stuff”. That is how you make decisions and measure how good or bad those decisions were, Steve said.
The key to getting a sensible result was to “wake the pancreas up a bit, so for 4 days before he came- he eat what is standard fare in UK- fish and chips, beer, bread and pastry.
Like waking a bear up at end of hibernation, the first day or two may have a groggy response.
So what we both agreed and learned was there was a higher than anticipated response to 75g glucose.
He has some residual insulin resistance. To correct this he will introduce 2 fasting days per week, and cut back on cream and cheese which might be holding up his waist circumference.
Steve has some insulin lateral flow devices and the plan is he will repeat a 1 hour post 75g glucose in 2-3 months time to see if there has been a positive response.
We had a great morning, great conversation. I love meeting engineers who like to ask why? And keep asking why till we get to where we need to.
Steve has reported the experience has empowered his significant knowledge base, and in fact Steve would like to get involved in our project. So you may be hearing more from Steve in the future!?
