Insulin Resistance: the Plague of Modern Society!
Posted by Scott meyers on Apr 1st, 2008 in Information | No Comments »Insulin resistance affects tens of millions in the United States. While insulin resistance can run in families, it is most influenced by lack of activity and the consumption of too much unrefined sugar. Both lead to an overweight condition, which then makes the problem of insulin resistance worse.
In order to understand insulin resistance, it is first important to understand how the body’s normal insulin-glucose cycle works, then what can go wrong with this cycle.
What is Insulin Resistance?
Insulin resistance is just what it sounds like – the pancreas produces more insulin than the body’s cells need. What’s more interesting is how insulin resistance develops in the first place.
How Should the Insulin Cycle Work Normally?
Your body has a finely-tuned mechanism for determining how much sugar is needed in the cells in order to function properly. The cycle goes like this:
The body has some glucose in each of its cells. Cells use up glucose due to activity. Brain cells use glucose if you’re thinking a lot (like doing a math problem or writing a speech). In fact, brain cells use around 20% of all the glucose your entire body needs – it’s an area that needs constant glucose in order to function!
The pancreas detects that the cells need more fuel – glucose – to carry on their functions. This organ produces insulin and sends it into the bloodstream. In a properly-functioning system, the cells absorb the insulin, which then triggers them to absorb more glucose.
The cells, triggered by the insulin, take in more glucose to keep their functions going.
As the level of circulating glucose declines, the insulin spurs your liver to produce more glucose. If it has lots of sugars nearby, it will use those (like when you’ve just eaten a candy bar). If there is less sugar, it will go to complex carbohydrates. If there’s none of that around, the liver will convert fat to glucose.
The glucose then circulates in your bloodstream and finds its way to the cells, whose appetite has been whetted by the insulin that they’ve absorbed.
And If I’m Insulin-Resistant, How does It Go Wrong?
The body’s finely-tuned insulin-glucose cycle worked well when we were all pursuing active lifestyles. The caveman hunters who had to run after prey every day got lots of exercise. And they ate foods that were unprocessed: game meats, complex carbohydrates (whole grains such as rice or wheat) and lots of fiber from tubers and other vegetables. The body never had an excess of sugars, as they just weren’t available in the diet.
This virtuous cycle persisted until a hundred years ago. People still worked hard in the factories and the fields, and food was generally wholesome.
In modern times, sedentary lifestyles and the high consumption of refined starches (like white bread) and sugars (like soft drinks or juice) have led to a disruption of this insulin-glucose cycle. The body consumes too much sugar and the cells use too little glucose. The result: circulating glucose levels and circulating insulin levels remain high as the pancreas tries to offset the overabundance of sugars in our system. Over time the cells become resistant to insulin, which means that ever increasing amounts are required for the same response.
The result is insulin resistance. It’s a plague, but one that can be combatted by reducing our intake of refined sugars, losing a few pounds, and getting off the couch and putting our muscles to work!
It is important to understand that we are ultimately responsible for our own well-being and should do whatever is necessary to maintain our health and assist our bodies in resisting and fighting disease. Since health practitioners agree that vitamins are essential for life and health, we must ensure that we receive adequate amounts for our bodies to function properly and to protect us from illnesses.
Well, well, well. I do believe we finally have a winner: free therapy for the growing number of those with diabetes. It turns out there are few excuses for diabetics — or any of us, for that matter — not to exercise. According to recent reports, nearly any form of exercise benefits the long-term control of blood sugar levels, be it aerobic, weight/resistance training, or both. Both forms in conjunction worked better than either one alone. This is great news for Texas, with more than 1.8 million estimated diagnosed and undiagnosed diabetics.
It used to be clear that Juvenile, or Type-I diabetes, occurred only with children, and Type-II (“Adult Onset”) diabetes occurred solely among adults. While Type-I diabetes remains a problem of the young, and has a different etiology than Type-II diabetes, both are climbing in incidence. Each has a different cause, and can be treated in different ways.
No one really wants to be labeled as “different”.
We are suffering an obesity epidemic in the United States. About 66 million people are classified as ‘obese,’ which means that they have a 
Diabetes has afflicted my life physically, emotionally and spiritually for the last sixteen years of my life. My wife of twelve years and daughter has had to live with an abnormal functioning husband and father. As the years went by as a diabetic, it became more and more difficult to control my blood sugar levels. My diet had to consist of a lot of calories because I have a fast metabolism and twenty pounds underweight.
Nearly 7% of Americans have some type of diabetes. Unfortunately, nearly one third of those people are unaware they suffer from it. When a person has diabetes, their body is unable to use the glucose that is in the food they eat.