Is it just me or is there something wrong with those number?

If you are so inclined, please have a look at this. No electronics of any kind, but a scientific publication about diet / nutrition.

“Metabolic and physiologic improvements from consuming a paleolithic, hunter-gatherer type diet”, LA Frassetto et al., EJCN, 2009, 63, 947-955, [PDF], [SHA1]

In essence they’re comparing a “usual diet” with a “paleo diet” with respect to all sorts of metabolic parameters, among these are: blood glucose and insulin levels.

From the abstract (emphasis is mine):

“We performed an outpatient, metabolically controlled study, in nine nonobese sedentary healthy volunteers, ensuring no weight loss by daily weight.”

I’ve just skimmed the paper, and got stuck on page 5, table 3 (click to enlarge):

Now, I don’t know how firm your knowledge about normal blood glucose levels is, so let me just throw a number out there: 5 mmol/l (90 mg/dl) is a reasonable value to have.

Take a look at the line “Insulin and Glucose”.

(Usual diet): 18 mmol/l
(Paleo diet): 17 mmol/l

Remember, these subjects were supposedly healthy, non-diabetic folk, yet these numbers are more than 3x higher than what they should be. I haven’t checked thoroughly, but subsequent calculations relying on the correctness of these numbers may be off as well.

I have contacted the lead author on the 15th of September 2015, no reply so far. On the 22nd of September 2015 I sent an email to EJCN staff, requesting clarification / correction.

I guess I shall have to wait and twiddle my thumbs…