about those ketone tests

Human bodies are dual fuel - glucose and triglycerides (I'll call this 'fat', because typing is hard work ...).

The body can only use one at a time, and prefers glucose because it's metabolically cheaper. In the presence of 'too much' glucose, the body converts the excess to fat. In the absence of glucose, the body uses fat for fuel. The use of fat produces by products called ketones.

You can buy a test kit that allows you to measure the ketone levels in your body, much as people do with blood glucose (BG) test kits. There's just one tiny catch: most insurance plans will cover BG test kits, and the on going supply of strips. They will not cover ketone test kits.

My primary care physician, bless his heart for tolerating me, told me that they're not medically necessary (for me), that they're useful for that diet thing called keto, that my insurance wouldn't cover it (but I should check with Excellus, and I did, and, they won't), but if I found it useful, he'd write the script anyway.

I declined his offer. The kits are available retail everywhere, Amazon, Walmart included. All the same prices.

Why I care: Insulin Resistance (IR) is a, if not the, defining biomarker for a host of annoying disease states, like T2D. Measuring IR directly requires blood lab work. Which rarely happens in real life, and never, for me. So, then, I find this ...

Yes, inverse relation.

Any wonder why I think I'm being milked for cash ??

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