What Is Insulin Resistance?Who's afraid of Insulin Resistance? Do you know what happens to an insulin resistant body? Insulin Resistence is a sneaky customer. Over half the population currently afflicted don't even know they have the symptoms and yet, most likely, they have been developing it for decades. It is important to recognise its pivotal role in Metabolic Syndrome, cardiovascular disease and diabetes mellitus type 2. If you think this is an unsexy subject, you should see what it will do to you if left unchallenged. Literally, the weight of evidence is all around us! The current fashion in industrialized nations is to consume a low fat, high carbohydrate diet. However the reality is that most of us are indulging in a high fat, high carbohydrate intake. The food options placed before us are just too darn convenient and the advertising messages that we are bombarded with daily convince us that this choice is really OK. The TRUTH is that sustained consumption of these high glycemic foods is slowly making us less and less sensitive to our own insulin. 'How is this so?' you may well ask. 'Why should I care?' you may think. An insulin resistant body does not sound anywhere near as scary as heart disease or diabetes. Yet the medical literature clearly shows that the risk of developing diseases such as these increases exponentially as our cells become more and more resistant to insulin.
Insulin is basically a storage hormone that drives blood sugars (glucose) into our cells to be utilized or stored as fat. Our body naturally needs to control the blood sugars which can be toxic if allowed to become excessive. It is part of the human body's natural cycle for insulin levels to rise and fall with each meal consumed. However chronic carbohydrate overload causes chronic insulin overload. This effect is exaggerated when we eat foods that contain simple or refined carbohydrates that are converted to sugar rapidly as our digestive system goes to work. Complex carbohydrates or low glycemic index foods are absorbed much more slowly by the body, so the insulin loading is more controlled with the additional benefit that it takes a lot longer before you feel hungry again. Consumption of highly processed foods causes spikes in the blood sugars, which the body attempts to control with the production of more insulin. Over time, with repeated loading, the body becomes less and less sensitive to it's own insulin, hence the term insulin resistance. This stimulates the beta cells of our pancreas to produce even more insulin in an attempt to bring the
blood sugar levels
under control. This revolving door of cause and effect continues until either the pancreas wears out from overproduction (becoming
diabetes mellitus
) or the resultant elevated insulin levels (hyperinsulinemia) leads to serious health problems. It is this group of problems commonly found to coexist that led Dr Gerald Reaven, a professor at Stanford University, to coin the term Syndrome X or
Metabolic Syndrome
. Sometimes this is also referred to as Reaven syndrome.
These are not obscure, seldom heard of, complications. These are the issues that are effecting one or more people in virtually every family in the industrialized world!! And the situation is not improving despite the billions of dollars in funding that has been invested in finding solutions. Unfortunately there is NO MAGIC BULLET - we can do something, but we need to understand the underlying causes and stages of insulin resistance so that we can take appropriate action for our own situation. Treatment for insulin resistance can be simple, in most cases, and often acheived without resorting to drugs. The very first step is recognising the symptoms of becoming insulin resistant. Thus armed you can better prepare to make the important lifestyle changes , that are crucial to your success. But first YOU must WANT to stop the inexorable slide to ill health. Becoming more discerning about the choices of food you consume is just one of the three elements to turning things around. You have to participate in your own rescue.
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