LANTUS to improve insulin sensitivity - "experiment"

[pesty4077]

A lot of people come and go on this board so the scenery changes, but as of right now you are on my top 3 favorite posters on this site, I always value your opinion, information, and insight. Your one of the very few that are welcome to call me an idiot at any time and I will respect it..LOL

My thoughts exactly.

 

[Swifto]

A lot of people come and go on this board so the scenery changes, but as of right now you are on my top 3 favorite posters on this site, I always value your opinion, information, and insight. Your one of the very few that are welcome to call me an idiot at any time and I will respect it..LOL

100% agree with this.

PS. I better be one of the other 2 favourite posters otherwise me and you are done pal!

 

[Elvia1023]

A lot of people come and go on this board so the scenery changes, but as of right now you are on my top 3 favorite posters on this site, I always value your opinion, information, and insight. Your one of the very few that are welcome to call me an idiot at any time and I will respect it..LOL

I feel the same. Type-IIx is one of my fav posters on here. There are only a very small number of people I take in everything they write and he is one of those. Blackbeard is another one.

 

[Type-IIx]

A lot of people come and go on this board so the scenery changes, but as of right now you are on my top 3 favorite posters on this site, I always value your opinion, information, and insight. Your one of the very few that are welcome to call me an idiot at any time and I will respect it..LOL

Thank you for these words and the sentiment, b-boy! I'd never call you an idiot because I at least try to be in the right neighborhood when I make a judgment like that (an unkind one).

Luki's not one either by any stretch of the imagination even though I disagree vehemently with his posts, like here, that seek to demonstrate that insulin improves insulin sensitivity. Rather than stupid, luki's posts on this topic are merely stubborn (because they refuse to flex or bend in the face of reason), ignorant (because he is motivated by animus rather than valuing factual information on the basis of obviously adequate & pertinent education and experience), and egotical (because he presumes that any reader should "of course" view insulin as totally harmless if not healthy because of his own risk tolerance).

I feel like I've been beating this drum here on ProM for a while now, that insulin (slin; exogenous insulin) inherently worsens insulin sensitivity (increases insulin resistance). But I will use the rest of this reply to try to explain it clearly and simply for anybody that cares to read or understand this:

It can be very confusing to those familiar with these concepts from bodybuilding discussions that hyperglycemia (elevated blood glucose) is but one factor that is associated with insulin resistance, but is not actually synonymous with insulin resistance (hyperglycemia =/= insulin resistance). Yes, reducing blood glucose to normal levels is very important in order to improve insulin sensitivity while using exogenous growth hormone (rhGH) because glucose is toxic to the pancreatic β cells.

Insulin Sensitivity is multifactorial & comprises systemic (e.g., QUICKI) and peripheral (e.g., GLUT-4) components, and is regulated centrally by GLP-1 & GIP. Hyperglycemia, i.e., high blood glucose, is but one factor (the other being insulin) that serves as a proxy for systemic Insulin Resistance (the reciprocal of insulin sensitivity). There are other aspects, including carbohydrate tolerance, etc.

Exogenous insulin reduces blood glucose and thereby prevents this glucotoxicity but actually causes insulin resistance.

Endogenous insulin is secreted in a pulsatile (quick bursts) fashion to regulate growth and metabolism, unlike testosterone that is secreted in a more steady-state fashion (gradual release into the blood; but subject to diurnal variations, e.g., more secretion in the morning than midday/evening). Chronic insulin elevations, e.g., those that are germane to the release profile of a daily low dose of insulin glargine (Lantus), possess a relatively large area-under-the-curve (AUC) due to the release profile (high concentrations on long time frames) vs. normal-healthy endogenous insulin release profiles (comparable to regular insulin pharmacokinetics, e.g., Actrapid, Novolin or HumuLin -R). That large AUC of Lantus and/or moderately-high & frequent exogenous regular insulin doses are described as chronic hyperinsulinemia.

This resistance does not occur by negative feedback at the β cell level.

Instead, what occurs with chronic hyperinsulinemia that causes insulin resistance is multifactorial and includes:
1. Increasing HOMA-IR & decreasing QUICKI (biochemical measures of insulin resistance)
2. Impaired insulin signal transduction due to receptor (IR) dysfunction & diminished autophosphorylation of the IR, thereby blocking GLUT-4 translocation to the cell surface in muscle & fat cells, meaning more glucose in blood:


3. Increasing sn-1,2-diacylglycerol (DAG) levels and activity due to de novo synthesis.

 

[Type-IIx]

@b-boy hope that wasn't annoying or too verbose, I didn't know how better to frame the point I want to make and try to highlight important definitions and concepts.

 

[jaxino]

Well insulin worsen insulin sensitivity.

Berberine and Metformin make our stomach a bag of superacid.... (I can't use both or I get incredible acid reflux)

I don't know what to think.... Better to use nothing.

 

[juggy38]

Well insulin worsen insulin sensitivity.

Berberine and Metformin make our stomach a bag of superacid.... (I can't use both or I get incredible acid reflux)

I don't know what to think.... Better to use nothing.

Dihydroberberine if you have a weak stomach

 

[luki7788]

Well insulin worsen insulin sensitivity.

Berberine and Metformin make our stomach a bag of superacid.... (I can't use both or I get incredible acid reflux)

I don't know what to think.... Better to use nothing.

I have a simple answer - don't do bodybuilding if you're concerned about your health

 

[jaxino]

I have a simple answer - don't do bodybuilding if you're concerned about your health

It's not about being concerned about my health, but about my gut health which is necessary if i want to do anything in bodybuilding....
I can't live with acid reflux day in day out.

 

[mjsle]

Pardon the fact that this is my first post, I’ve been lurking and reading for a long time.
My son is T1D, so I’m very familiar with the actions of lantus and log on BG in someone who is dependent on it. I personally haven’t pushed my food intake to the point where I feel insulin is necessary, but the time will come and I want to do it the most effective way possible. As I think we all do.

In our case here I think we’re ultimately trying to find the best way to process all the carbs for as long as possible. In Luki’s case (or anyone who needs to be putting down 800+ carbs to continue to make progress) there’s really 4 possible options –
1. Do nothing - let the body and pancreas handle what you give it. Obviously this will lead to insulin resistance and a time in caloric deficit will be needed to recover sensitivity.

2.GLAs – Berberine, metformin, etc. Long track record of delaying the inevitable insulin resistance. Some don’t tolerate it well, as stated above. Do GLAs actually help process carbs more efficiently? Are we really making better progress because of them? Might be individual. Regardless they can help us stay in a surplus longer than option 1.

3.Exogenous fast acting insulin - clear benefit for getting more bricks to the muscles at big meals/high days. Does it help build more, longer? Or just build more, until resistance sets in?

4.Exogenous long acting insulin(lantus) – definite IGF benefits. Gets more bricks to muscles on high days. Does it delay inevitable resistance? Or is it accelerating resistance?

(5.) Some combo of 3 and 4

Insulin resistance is going to come if we’re in a prolonged surplus, as a matter of course. The actions of exogenous insulin promote insulin resistance, as a matter of course. But what combinations and amounts of caloric surplus and exogenous insulins are going to build the most muscle, for as long as possible?

I think the devil is in the dose.

To use my son as an example – he gets a bolus of lantus every single day, but has not gotten progressively more resistant. His lantus dose is entirely dependent on what keeps his BG level between meals when there's no rapid insulin active. His carb ratio for rapid is typically 15:1 and has stayed that way for a long time (unless he’s playing soccer or jumping on a trampoline then we dose 30 or 40:1, no joke).

If lantus was promoting resistance then his rapid ratio would get lower and lower and they’d have him on a pump asap (constant pulsing of rapid insulin). And there are T1D lifters (Jessica Buettner comes to mind) that use the lantus/rapid combo with great results.

Getting the dose right is the key to it all.

Carb cycling helps delay resistance, GLAs help delay resistance, cardio (go jump on a trampoline) helps delay resistance. But at the end of the day resistance is inevitable in a long caloric surplus. When we get to big boy carb numbers I think a lantus/rapid combo is just helping to make the most of those calories until we inevitably need to reset sensitivity. But the dose has to match - match our size, match our activity, match our food intake.

If the dose is too low then we just don’t make as much progress as we could. If the dose is too high (carbs & insulin) then we get resistant faster than we needed to.

 

[bigjim6775]

If you're going to lecture me on my tact and tone when treated with incivility and become, reasonably, irritated, then I reserve the right to lecture you on your dangerous promulgation of risky drug use. You're lucky the liver is as resilient as it is.

Remember when Duchaine was regarded as a lunatic for being the only voice in bodybuilding openly promoting insulin use? I remember.

Now everyone thinks Lantus is not only fine, but healthy, because of writings like yours.

You know who this guys reminds of , the guy In the bar scene in Good Will hunting , tries to impress the girl by regurgitating stuff he is reading out of a book and quickly gets put In his place by Will. Ok get back to your debate ..

 

[mjsle]

I wanted to test the theory that administering lantus in small doses over a longer period of time improves insulin sensitivity and lowers A1c

As far as the original experiment, at the blood glucose level I think you would definitely see a lowered A1c. Whether or not it's improving sensitivity at the cellular level would be tough to tell. But if the dose is low enough, it's certainly not making it worse.
Paul Barnett was on one of Scott McNally's podcasts recently, talking about his offseason with Justin Harris. He said he was running 10iu of Lantus daily with rapid on his high days. Seemed to work pretty well for him.

 

[Bobik]

As far as the original experiment, at the blood glucose level I think you would definitely see a lowered A1c. Whether or not it's improving sensitivity at the cellular level would be tough to tell. But if the dose is low enough, it's certainly not making it worse.
Paul Barnett was on one of Scott McNally's podcasts recently, talking about his offseason with Justin Harris. He said he was running 10iu of Lantus daily with rapid on his high days. Seemed to work pretty well for him.

10iu Lantus per night like Luki or during the day?

 

[CorgisOnTren]

10iu Lantus per night like Luki or during the day?

He states he does it before bed in his post, since it’s time of action isn’t truly 24hrs and he wants it to reflect in his morning blood glucose.

 

[Bobik]

He states he does it before bed in his post, since it’s time of action isn’t truly 24hrs and he wants it to reflect in his morning blood glucose.

yes, I know. I wonder if Barnett does too

 

[CorgisOnTren]

yes, I know. I wonder if Barnett does too

Apologies, misread your comment.

Yes, Paul has stated before I believe he doses it PM in one of his Q&As (or maybe one of his insulin videos). He could have changed his approach since then but since he does it daily I think he said he just takes it all the night before.

 

[mjsle]

Fwiw, in my son's case, lantus is active for about 20hrs and takes about 2hrs to get to full activity.
We dose him in the morning. This way lantus is doing its thing by the time the rapid dose for breakfast is done, and when it starts to dwindle at 4am he's been fasted for a while so BG stays pretty steady anyway.
Dosing lantus at night was hell because there was none in the system around dinner time and we'd chase big BG swings all evening.

However, this is an entirely different scenario, being T1D. For A1c/sensitivity purposes and a working pancreas lantus timing might be moot.

A CGM makes knowing all this possible because you can see the trends and swings. Finger pricking 6 times a day is about as good as pissing in the wind with T1D because you only get a snapshot, not a trend direction.
If I were going to play with lantus and rapid I would very likely use a CGM until I knew my dose and timing responses.

 

[luki7788]

only a quote from dr. Ashim - and its explanation

The image represents a state of overdosage of Lantus not small doses

The Pathways are to overcomplicate a simple point

1. Insulin works to open channel for nutrition to enter the cell
2. The nutrition that enters the cell enters as Glucose molecule , either attached to protein or on its own
3. Glucose enters through GLUT 4
4. Glycoproteins (Glucose and Protein) need to further processing through MTor
5. Once the nutrients enter the cell the insulin detaches or is broken down, think of a spaceship depositing the payload.

The discussion here is simple can Insulin cause insulin resistance that depends on how long the Insulin sits on the receptor to do its work.

This depends on the cell state a stressed cell or dying will not activate enough receptors that means the insulin will not work well and the hyperinsulinemia will help here - Inhibits Autophagy (Auto - Self Phagy - death by self consumption (this is to make it easy)

Now look at a healthy cell it doesn't need Insulin in high amounts - It needs small amounts and is able to take in more nutrition.

When you are eating in a calorie excess your cells are stressed as they now need to take in more nutrition plus the activity of the receptor is enhanced by Thyroid, Testosterone (all proven upregulators of Insulin Receptors) the cells cannot afford this autophagy, thus Insulin Lantus works to help them.

Here the dose is the most important factor a dose that is too low will not prevent enough cell death and as a result the glucose will overflow leading to a rise in HbA1c.

Too high a dose will cause too much receptor activity and prevent lot of cell death when it is not required and thus lead to over stimulation related cascades that lead to long term receptor deactivation.

While the ideal dose will have your sugar staying stable throughout the day and the recovery from training sessions to be amazing.
This will also lower HBA1c as the sugars in the blood will be shuttled to the cell and not the Hemoglobin to increase HBA1c.
One more effect of this is the healthy receptor are passed on to the new cells when formed.

 

[Bobik]

only a quote from dr. Ashim - and its explanation

The image represents a state of overdosage of Lantus not small doses

The Pathways are to overcomplicate a simple point

1. Insulin works to open channel for nutrition to enter the cell
2. The nutrition that enters the cell enters as Glucose molecule , either attached to protein or on its own
3. Glucose enters through GLUT 4
4. Glycoproteins (Glucose and Protein) need to further processing through MTor
5. Once the nutrients enter the cell the insulin detaches or is broken down, think of a spaceship depositing the payload.

The discussion here is simple can Insulin cause insulin resistance that depends on how long the Insulin sits on the receptor to do its work.

This depends on the cell state a stressed cell or dying will not activate enough receptors that means the insulin will not work well and the hyperinsulinemia will help here - Inhibits Autophagy (Auto - Self Phagy - death by self consumption (this is to make it easy)

Now look at a healthy cell it doesn't need Insulin in high amounts - It needs small amounts and is able to take in more nutrition.

When you are eating in a calorie excess your cells are stressed as they now need to take in more nutrition plus the activity of the receptor is enhanced by Thyroid, Testosterone (all proven upregulators of Insulin Receptors) the cells cannot afford this autophagy, thus Insulin Lantus works to help them.

Here the dose is the most important factor a dose that is too low will not prevent enough cell death and as a result the glucose will overflow leading to a rise in HbA1c.

Too high a dose will cause too much receptor activity and prevent lot of cell death when it is not required and thus lead to over stimulation related cascades that lead to long term receptor deactivation.

While the ideal dose will have your sugar staying stable throughout the day and the recovery from training sessions to be amazing.
This will also lower HBA1c as the sugars in the blood will be shuttled to the cell and not the Hemoglobin to increase HBA1c.
One more effect of this is the healthy receptor are passed on to the new cells when formed.

now you have to find the ideal dose according to your nutrition and needs. That probably won't be easy.

 

[D-NUTZ]

He states he does it before bed in his post, since it’s time of action isn’t truly 24hrs and he wants it to reflect in his morning blood glucose.

I’ve actually talked with a type 1 diabetic last year and although Lantus is supposed to “long acting” big bodybuiders really should dose it 2x daily.

Also you shouldn’t workout or take a hot shower immediately after injectioning it because it won’t allow it to crystallize and slowly drip into the bloodstream like intended