Insulin Resistance – You Probably Already Have It Part 1

This is important because:

• It is estimated that 85% of American adults are insulin resistance.
• It is the most common health disorder worldwide.
• It is prevalent in most of the leading causes of death.

According to Dr. Ben Bikman, who is a biomedical scientist, a professor and a leading authority on insulin resistance (and from whose research much of our topic is based on), there are questions that can help you assess your risk level. For example:

• Do you have more fat around your belly than you would like?
• Do you have high blood pressure?
• Do you have a family history of heart disease?
• Do you have high levels of blood triglycerides?
• Do you retain water easily?
• Do you have patches of darker colored skin, little bumps or skin tags at your neck armpits or other areas?
• Do you have a family member with insulin resistance or type II diabetes?
• Do you have polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS for women) or erectile dysfunction (for men)?

If you answered yes to one question, you likely have insulin resistance; but if you answered yes to any two questions or more, you most certainly have insulin resistance. In fact, it is so common, that statistically half of all American adults have it, as well as one in three Americans overall when you add in non-adults. Some estimates even state these numbers are low and could be as high as 88% of the American population.

Insulin is a major hormone that is naturally produced in your body (unless you are a Type 1 diabetic). As a hormone, it is produced in the pancreas and then travels to our bloodstream to communicate with and affect other parts of the body.

Insulin is referred to as the mother of all hormones, because unlike the other hundreds of hormones, it affects pretty much every cell in your body. In other words, insulin has a big job as it keeps us in line and tells us what to do.

Insulin is so unique, though, because it instructs various cells differently. It regulates energy use, cell size, the flexibility of those cells to produce other hormones and even whether cells live or die.

And as we just mentioned, because insulin is also a fat storage hormone, it will cause fat cells to grow. So, if insulin is up, body fat goes up; if insulin is down, body fat goes down.

To drive this point home even further to the low-calorie diet advocates – if two people are eating the same amount of calories in a day, but one is eating ice cream, donuts, bread, crackers and cereal, which spike insulin, yet keeping the calorie count the same as a person who is eating whole foods like healthy proteins and vegetables that do not spike insulin – the donut eater will not be as lean, because insulin will direct the food to be stored as fat. If you keep spiking insulin, you will store fat.

For those of us who continue to eat foods that will spike our blood sugar, and hence our insulin, we will eventually find ourselves in a state of hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance, and we will have a difficult time losing weight. And weight loss is even further complicated when taking insulin for this very reason… insulin stores fat.

So, if we want to stop gaining and start losing weight, we have to control our insulin production. This is why Genesis focuses on eating low-glycemic foods, which means foods that will not raise your blood sugar and, therefore, your insulin.