Understanding Insulin Resistance

This is insulin resistance

We are hearing the term “Insulin Resistance” more and more these days which is not surprising, because it is the hormonal condition behind many of our common health conditions as highlighted by Gerald Reaven in his 1988 “Syndrome X” lecture .  Understanding insulin resistance, is critical to good health.

Insulin is the Master Fat Hormone.  If you have zero insulin, you are unable to store fat regardless of what you eat or how many calories.  Type-1 diabetics can suffer from this if they do not supplement insulin and without insulin they will die.  Type-2 diabetics have too much glucose.  If you continually have too much glucose plus the resulting insulin, this is toxic, so over time you will get fat, your tissues will be damaged and you could lose your eyesight, your hearing, your fertility, lose limbs to amputation, damage nerves, damage kidneys, and most likely die from heart disease.

Interestingly, Type-2 Diabetics are often prescribed supplemental insulin in an attempt to reduce their high glucose condition.  While this can force glucose down, it creates a very toxic level of insulin which can permanently damage tissues.  This is a bit like adding cars to a freeway to reduce congestion and is considered by some to be medical malpractice.  Reducing glucose has to be a better solution.

Your pancreas makes the hormone insulin to carefully manage glucose levels because when this gets out of control it can result in loss of consciousness or worse. Type-1 diabetics usually have a damaged pancreas resulting in low or zero insulin.

When glucose is high, the situation becomes urgent. Insulin is released to signal the muscles and liver to pull glucose from the blood and store it as glycogen.  However, if they are full of glycogen, insulin then signals your body to convert excess glucose to fat (triglycerides) and store it in fat cells.  Low insulin allows the hormone called Insulin Sensitive Lipase, to pull stored fat from fat cells, assemble it back into triglycerides and release it into the blood where it can be used by the body for energy.  Your insulin level must therefore be low for your body to use up your stored body fat.  With high insulin your stored fat will not be used regardless of how low your calories are. 

When glucose gets low, your liver can make supplementary glucose from protein and fat.  This is perfectly normal and  can happen between meals or overnight in order to maintain the glucose level in your blood at a safe, non-toxic level which is about 5 grams or one teaspoonful.  If fat adapted, your body can provide your brain with energy in low glucose situations by supplying ketones from fat metabolism.

If you regularly eat high levels of carbohydrates in meals, snacks and drinks, then you are subjecting your body to an urgent excess glucose problem continually, and eventually it will push back.  Just like too much sunshine can cause sunburn, too much glucose, can over time, cause insulin resistance.  There is just too much energy sloshing about in your blood. Your cells become full so start to reduce the number of insulin receptors and your body begins to actively resist the signaling message about clearing the excess toxic glucose.  Unfortunately for females, your ovaries don’t have this capability so they just stop releasing eggs in protest. 

With constant high insulin then over time, your baseline insulin level gradually rises and you become desensitized to insulin signaling.  You have become insulin resistant. This means that foods that don’t spike insulin in some people may rapidly spike your insulin, because your body needs much more insulin for the hormone signals to work.  Because insulin is the fat hormone, then regardless of how little you eat, you will fail to lose any weight and may even get fatter on a low calorie diet.

Type-2 diabetics were identified in years gone by because their kidneys were actively dumping glucose meaning their urine was sweet and attractive to insects.

There are 5 recognized measures of insulin resistance: 

1. High waist circumference where two times your waist measure is more than your height, 

2. Low HDL, 

3. High triglycerides, 

4. Elevated blood pressure, 

5. Elevated fasting glucose.

Insulin is a growth stimulant as seen by the tissue growth at insulin injection sites.  Insulin resistant mothers can pass the insulin resistance on to their unborn child.  Clues to this condition include: Gestational diabetes, difficulty conceiving, and a baby that is large and tends to grow quickly, typically becoming a bigger and taller child than similar aged children.   Recognizing this early and making dietary adjustments to reduce the insulin resistance may prevent a lifetime of sickness.  The growth stimulating nature of insulin may be why cancer seeks out insulin to release glucose for fueling tumor growth.  A high insulin level therefore can make you more welcoming to cancer and may explain why obesity is correlated with higher cancer risk.

There is a solution to this but it can take a long time and may require management forever.  You must retrain your body to be sensitive to insulin.  To do this you must drastically reduce the level of glucose arriving from your food and change other actions that typically drive up insulin.  A low salt diet drives up insulin, stress and poor sleep drive up insulin, some medications drive up insulin.  Carefully changing these, with a very low-carb / keto diet, may over time, restore your body, but can never undo past damage.

I understand that some of the changes can happen very quickly.  Excess liver fat can disappear in weeks and glucose suppression medications can become over-prescribed within days,  but it can take many months to retrain the body to not anticipate that glucose spike, to hold back an automatic insulin spike and bring the baseline level of insulin down to a normal level.

Get free nutrition guidance or my book at www.takebackyrhealth.com.  Seek professional medical advice before dietary changes, particularly if on medication.  George Elder, Health Coach, Author, Diploma in Nutrition.  The best thing you can do for your health is eat better.