- Fri Aug 12, 2011 9:26 pm
#16064
Have you been diagnosed with insulin resistance? If you have, you might be worried and confused. It's difficult to understand the relationship between insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes if it hasn't been explained well, and it's also very hard to live with insulin resistance.
What is Insulin Resistance?
Insulin resistance occurs because insulin is produced every time you eat. Insulin is what takes sugar from the food you eat out of your bloodstream and moves it into your cells, where your cells can use it for all the tasks they need to do. Without insulin, sugar builds up in your blood, which can cause problems like exhaustion, irritability, and even lightheadedness, dizziness, confusion, and fainting. What can make this even more confusing is that the symptoms of HIGH blood sugar and LOW blood sugar can be nearly identical!
When you have insulin resistance, it usually is the result of many years of eating meals that are high in calories and simple carbohydrates, which prompts the body to produce large amounts of insulin. Just like people can develop a resistance to certain drugs (and then they require higher and higher amounts to get the same "high"--which starts a vicious cycle) you can develop a resistance to your own insulin. When this happens, you need larger and larger amounts of insulin just to get a little sugar out of your blood and into your cells where it's needed.
Most people with insulin resistance become severely overweight over time, because they need to consume larger and larger amounts of calories and simple carbs in order to get some sugar into their cells and feel "like themselves." It's tough to deal with this condition--who among us hasn't reached for food when we felt exhausted and cranky?
The irony of insulin resistance is that, even as the sufferer eats more and more food, the body is actually starving for the fuel it needs to work! Most of the sugar broken down from food is left in the blood stream, and ends up leaving the body in urine (a marker of diabetes.)
The best way to improve insulin resistance is by losing weight--but insulin resistance makes it very, very difficult to lose weight! That's why sufferers of this condition should always consult a doctor to decide how to proceed.
What is Insulin Resistance?
Insulin resistance occurs because insulin is produced every time you eat. Insulin is what takes sugar from the food you eat out of your bloodstream and moves it into your cells, where your cells can use it for all the tasks they need to do. Without insulin, sugar builds up in your blood, which can cause problems like exhaustion, irritability, and even lightheadedness, dizziness, confusion, and fainting. What can make this even more confusing is that the symptoms of HIGH blood sugar and LOW blood sugar can be nearly identical!
When you have insulin resistance, it usually is the result of many years of eating meals that are high in calories and simple carbohydrates, which prompts the body to produce large amounts of insulin. Just like people can develop a resistance to certain drugs (and then they require higher and higher amounts to get the same "high"--which starts a vicious cycle) you can develop a resistance to your own insulin. When this happens, you need larger and larger amounts of insulin just to get a little sugar out of your blood and into your cells where it's needed.
Most people with insulin resistance become severely overweight over time, because they need to consume larger and larger amounts of calories and simple carbs in order to get some sugar into their cells and feel "like themselves." It's tough to deal with this condition--who among us hasn't reached for food when we felt exhausted and cranky?
The irony of insulin resistance is that, even as the sufferer eats more and more food, the body is actually starving for the fuel it needs to work! Most of the sugar broken down from food is left in the blood stream, and ends up leaving the body in urine (a marker of diabetes.)
The best way to improve insulin resistance is by losing weight--but insulin resistance makes it very, very difficult to lose weight! That's why sufferers of this condition should always consult a doctor to decide how to proceed.
