The KRAFT Test Explained: Catching Insulin Resistance Years Before a Diabetes Diagnosis

By the time a standard fasting glucose test flags a problem, insulin resistance has usually been building for years. The KRAFT Test is designed to catch it while there's still time to act on it — not after it's already become type 2 diabetes.

What the KRAFT Test actually is

The KRAFT Test is a diagnostic approach pioneered by Dr Joseph Kraft, a pathologist who studied insulin response in more than 14,000 patients over several decades. Instead of taking a single fasting blood draw, Kraft's method measures insulin at multiple points after a glucose challenge — capturing the full shape of your insulin response, not just a snapshot of it.

That matters because insulin resistance shows up in that response curve long before it shows up in fasting glucose or HbA1c. Kraft's research found that the majority of people who went on to develop type 2 diabetes had an abnormal insulin response years — sometimes decades — before their glucose numbers moved at all.

Why fasting glucose alone misses so much

A fasting glucose test asks one question: is your blood sugar too high right now, this morning, after not eating? For most of the population, the honest answer stays "no" for a very long time, because the pancreas compensates for early insulin resistance by producing more and more insulin to keep glucose in range. Glucose looks fine. Insulin is already working overtime.

That compensation is exactly what a standard annual check-up doesn't measure. Insulin isn't part of a routine lipid panel, and it isn't part of a routine glucose test either. The strain is invisible on paper until the pancreas can no longer keep up — at which point glucose rises and a diagnosis follows, often 10+ years after the underlying problem started.

What the test actually looks like

A KRAFT-style test measures insulin at several points following a glucose challenge, rather than relying on a single fasting draw. The resulting pattern places you into one of several response types, ranging from a normal, well-controlled response through to patterns that indicate significant hyperinsulinemia — often years before fasting glucose would show anything abnormal at all.

Meo's KRAFT Test brings this same principle to an at-home format, giving you a picture of your insulin response pattern without needing to book a specialist appointment or wait weeks for lab-only diagnostics.

Who should pay attention to this

Insulin resistance doesn't announce itself. Common early indicators worth paying attention to include a family history of type 2 diabetes, weight that concentrates around the waist rather than the hips, fatigue after carbohydrate-heavy meals, and a fasting glucose that sits at the high end of "normal" without technically crossing into prediabetes. None of these are diagnostic on their own — but together, they're exactly the kind of pattern the KRAFT approach was built to catch early.

This connects directly to the Biological Age Score Meo already tracks: fasting glucose is one of its four inputs, but by the time glucose moves, insulin resistance has usually had a head start. Testing insulin response directly closes that gap.

Common questions

Is the KRAFT Test the same as a standard glucose tolerance test? No. A standard glucose tolerance test measures glucose at intervals after a challenge. The KRAFT approach measures insulin at those same intervals, which is what actually reveals early insulin resistance — glucose alone can look completely normal while insulin is already working much harder than it should.

Can I have insulin resistance with a normal fasting glucose? Yes, and it's common. The pancreas compensates by producing extra insulin, which keeps glucose in range for years while the underlying resistance builds. That's precisely the gap the KRAFT Test is built to close.

What do I do if my result suggests high insulin resistance? Meo AI will flag it in plain English and explain what it means for your Biological Age Score. From there, Meo Coached pairs you with Dr Arup Sen for a structured 12-week programme focused on the changes that move insulin sensitivity in the right direction.

Curious what your own insulin response looks like? Explore the KRAFT Test and find out before it becomes a diagnosis instead of a data point.