What is Insulin resistance ?

 

 

If you are carrying belly fat, chances are you have a disease called Insulin resistance. After you eat a meal filled with carbohydrates or sugars, your blood sugar (glucose) level rises. Insulin is a  hormone made by the pancreas that helps remove glucose out of your bloodstream and into cells.

 

In addition, Insulin is a fat storage hormone. When Insulin is working efficiently, it converts your glucose into energy and stores the remaining unused amount in your muscles, fat cells and liver. If you are Insulin resistant (most commonly caused by carrying around excess body fat), Insulin loses its efficiency and instead stores much of the extra unused glucose as FAT. 

 

If you become insulin resistant, the body will try to produce much larger amounts insulin to try and counteract that resistance. Remember, Insulin is a fat storage hormone, so the more the body secretes, the more fat you store.

 

But at the same time, excess body fat increases Insulin resistance and acts as a barrier to its normal function, not allowing your body to feel the effect of Insulin. Therefore the body has no choice but to make even more Insulin, more Insulin stores more fat, more body fat causes the body to secrete more Insulin and we end up in a vicious cycle of inevitable weight gain.

 

If you are Insulin resistant, your body throws a great amount of Insulin to control glucose levels, where if Insulin was more efficient, it would only secrete a small amount of it to do the same job and in turn reduce that Insulin dependant weight gain that we talked about previously.

 

If we compare a skinny person to an overweight person, the skinnier person will make much less Insulin to control rising glucose levels verses an overweight person. 

 

Over time, if your Insulin levels remain high (hyperinsulinaemia) you will develop high levels of  Insulin resistance, which may in turn lead to diabetes and other serious health problems.

 

Hyperinsulinaemia (a result of consistently high Insulin levels due to a high level of glucose consumed in the diet) can be associated with the following serious health conditions:

 

·                        Obesity

·                        Diabetes

·                        Alzheimer’s/dementia

·                        Parkinson’s

·                        Hypertriglyceridemia

·                        Chronic inflammation

·                        Periodontal disease

·                        Osteoporosis

·                        Arthritis

·                        Hypertension

·                        Fatty liver

·                        Cancer