If anything is going to increase your odds of SVR it is worth looking into...
Looks like you're about to share the HOMA equation...
Get it out in the open... I'd like to give my teacher and scholar Co, props for sharing this equation with me.
Get your fasting blood sugar and fasting insulin tested first.
Take your results (fasting blood sugar & fasting insulin) and multiply,,, and then divide by 22.5.
The higher the HOMA, the more insulin resistant you are and the more SVR drops.
If you're results are less than 2... SVR 60.5%
If between 2 & 4... SVR 40%
If higher than 4... SVR 20%
Thanks for the info, but I'm going to just stick with what my doctor's are telling me. I've been having to go to the doctor's too much already with upteen tests and procedures and quite frankly, I'm just sick and tired of being in the doctor's office and being stuck and scanned and poked and prodded! Recently, I went through this whole thing with the rheumatologist running all these blood tests, having me get an MRI of my knee which has swelling and after all that expense and testing and procedures, nothing was ever able to be diagnosed in a definitive fashion. Every 3 mon., these doctor's are having me get bloodwork and if ANYTHING even slightly abnormal comes up on them, they send me back in for even more bloodwork. The other day, they called me up wanting me to get another bone densitometry and I told them to wait until the fall. I don't want to go through a whole huge workup trying to have them make me diagnosed with IR, just to end up having something else for them to call me in for constantly. No thanks. I'll take my chances. I already get ultrasounded or MRI's every 6 mon., if any Liver abnormality i.e. Liver CA shows up, it will be caught early. I am not cirrhotic yet, so I'm not going to get into all this worrying. Thanks for letting me get on my soapbox! Susan400
Diffuse Cirrhosis-like Hepatocellular Carcinoma: A Clinically and Radiographically Undetected Variant Mimicking Cirrhosis.
Jakate S, Yabes A, Giusto D, Naini B, Lassman C, Yeh MM, Ferrell LD.
*Department of Pathology, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL daggerDepartment of Pathology, University of California San Francisco Medical Center, San Francisco section signDepartment of Pathology, University of California Los Angeles Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA double daggerDepartment of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA parallelDepartment of Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.
Abstract
A rare variant of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is encountered that produces small cirrhosis-like nodules diffusely throughout the liver (CL-HCC), instead of a larger evident mass. This pattern remains undetected as carcinoma clinically and radiographically and is unexpectedly discovered after liver transplantation in the explanted native liver. We studied 10 such cases (9 males and 1 female, age 35 to 80 y) from 4 medical centers. The pretransplant clinical, laboratory, and radiographical studies were reviewed to determine the cause and stage of liver disease, alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) levels, and detectability of a mass on imaging. All 10 cases had underlying cirrhosis of varying etiology [3 hepatitis C virus (HCV), 3 alcoholic hepatitis, 1 hepatitis B virus, 1 autoimmune, and 2 mixed HCV/alcoholic hepatitis and hemochromatosis/HCV] and underwent orthotopic liver transplantation with no preoperative clinical suspicion of HCC. Ultrasound and/or dynamic imaging showed cirrhosis and no definite HCC. AFP levels were only mildly elevated in only 3 of 10 cases (144, 150, and 252 ng/mL). Grossly, there were innumerable (from about 20 to >1000) small CL-HCC nodules (0.2 to 0.6 cm) scattered among cirrhotic nodules. Histologically, these were well or moderately differentiated HCC, often with pseudoglandular pattern, perinodular sclerotic rims, cholestasis, frequent Mallory bodies, and small vessel invasion. In addition to the usual HCC immunophenotype, CL-HCC showed frequent ubiquitin and cytoplasmic and membranous CD10 positivity, relatively low Ki-67 proliferative index and absence of AFP immunohistochemically. CL-HCC warrants recognition as a unique HCC variant that evades pretransplant detection despite massive tumor burden, mimics cirrhotic nodules, and shows some uncommon pathologic and immunophenotypical characteristics.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20463569
"My A1C's for the past year have ALWAYS been normal."
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From "Abnormalities of Glucose Metabolism, Including Insulin Resistance" by
Michael Dube, MD, University of Indiana and ACTG researcher
"Importance of insulin resistance: Insulin resistance is the term used when the body needs more insulin than normal to control the blood sugar. Only when the pancreas can no longer produce sufficient insulin to overcome the resistance does diabetes occur, so TESTING THE BLOOD SUGAR ALONE WILL NOT BE ENOUGH TO ESTIMATE INSULIN RESISTANCE."
"it is clear that INSULIN RESISTANCE IS UNDESIRABLE EVEN IF THE BLOOD SUGAR REMAINS RELATIVELY NORMAL (i.e. in the non-diabetic range). It causes an increase in cardiovascular disease risk and abnormalities in blood vessel function and lipid levels. Interventions that address insulin resistance all tend to improve cardiovascular risk factors.
(editorial comment: you can perform an insulin resistance test to evaluate whether or not you are developing insulin resistance, which can preceed seeing sugar elevations in the blood and diabetes. Performing the insulin resistance test is a way to perhaps identify a potential problem BEFORE sugar in your blood is elevated)."
Co
P.S. Insulin resistance is associated with having a high viral load, lower SVR, faster fibrosis progression....and no benefit.
Well, I do find it rather interesting to note that whenever I have non-fasting liver labs and the glucose is in the panel ..just because.., my blood sugar is perfectly in the normal range and this is after a substantial, rather large breakfast, I might add. ( i.e., eggs, toast, cereal, fruit...), now I'm not trying to be argumentative but, IF I was IR, one would reason that I would have an elevated blood sugar after a high carb meal? I'm telling you that my blood sugar was like 70 after eating, toast, whole wheat cereal, egg-whites, fruit, juice, coffee.... The toast was not that cardboard tasting low-carb type, it was just normal variety whole wheat toast. The cereal was not some type of Kashi or Oatmeal, it was Wheaties complete w/all it's added (god-forbid...little bit of sugar). And, oh, by the way, I also eat chocolate. However, my weight is normal for my height. All the other markers for IR are not there. I have normal cholesterol, normal triglycerides. My waist size is within normal limits. This is based on my doctor's assessment, mind you. My thyroid is normal. My blood pressure is normal (in fact on the low side). So, why is it that so many on here are questioning my statement that I am not IR??? What do you expect me to do, go and stand in front of my doctor w/my hands on my hips and DEMAND that he do a fasting GTT? There are many reasons why someone can be not clearing the virus and it doesn't always have to fall into the category of IR. Yes, I do have some elevated blood sugar's, but they are not THAT bad and my doctor said that under to old guidelines, that we would not even be having this conversation. It's just since they lowered the limits on the blood sugar that this has become an issue. That's my opinion on this. Susan400
There's something I haven't been able to sort out about the HOMA index calculation - I'd be curious to hear any thoughts/corrections on this.
The simple formula for HOMA1 as Cory writes above is FI*FG/22.5 where FI is fasting insulin in uU/ml and FG is fasting glucose in mMol/L. If FG is reported in mg/dL, common in the US, you first have to change units by dividing by 18. So for bandman's readings, HOMA1 is
(16*(100/18))/22.5=3.94
which would be outside the normal HOMA range and indicate possible IR.
However, HOMA1 has been criticized for high variability and an updated formula, HOMA2, was introduced by the authors
Unfortunately the HOMA2 calculation is not a simple multiplication and involves a non-linear fit. Inputs are the same and it is available from the authors' site
http://www.dtu.ox.ac.uk/homacalculator/index.php
either as an executable or as an excel spreadsheet. For FG=100 mg/dL and FI=16 uU/mL the HOMA2 value is 2.1 which is close to normal.
Reference ranges for FG are normal lt 100 and FI normal lt 17 - or at least those were the ranges from my last FI/FG tests, the FI reference range may vary depending on test). So it seems consistent that in-range FI/FG would yield in-range HOMA2.