sarah.morrison said:

Fasting insulin is the lab my functional medicine doctor cares about most for glycaemic control: it's a much earlier marker of metabolic dysfunction…

My labs after 3 months on glycaemic control: A1C 5.7%, fasting glucose 87 mg/dL, fasting insulin 8 uIU/mL. My endo says these are "textbook perfect."

For context, my baseline A1C was 6.9% and fasting glucose was 132 mg/dL. The improvement has been dramatic and consistent.

marcus_mpls said:

Fasting glucose improved within weeks and my HbA1c barely moved for three months, which I now understand and did not at the time.

Insulin sensitivity test (HOMA-IR) on glycaemic control — arguably the most important metabolic marker most people aren't tracking:

HOMA-IR = (fasting insulin × fasting glucose) ÷ 405

My numbers: Baseline HOMA-IR = 5.2 (insulin resistant) → Current = 1.0 (insulin sensitive)

Anything above 2.0 indicates insulin resistance. The goal is below 1.5. GLP-1 agonists address the root metabolic dysfunction, not just the symptoms. This is why they work so much better than calorie restriction alone.

BethLabQueen said:

My labs after 3 months on glycaemic control: A1C 5.7%, fasting glucose 87 mg/dL, fasting insulin 8 uIU/mL.

Patient selection optimization for glycaemic control: emerging predictive biomarkers for GLP-1 agonist response include:

The 4-week early responder criterion is the most clinically actionable: if you haven't lost ≥3% by week 4 at a therapeutic dose, discuss optimization strategies with your provider.

One thing that is still open after JennaRN’s answer:

What did you change at the same time, and can you separate the two now?

Dr.SurgeonPGH said:

Patient selection optimization for glycaemic control: emerging predictive biomarkers for GLP-1 agonist response include: Biomarker Association…

Complete metabolic panel trending on glycaemic control — sharing because comprehensive data helps everyone:

The insulin resistance improvement (HOMA-IR) is what my endo focuses on most. Going from 5.5 to near 1.0 is a metabolic transformation.