What is insulin resistance? You need to know !

Understanding Insulin Resistance: Its Impact on Your Body

Usually realizing it, you may have insulin resistance for years. Since this illness usually doesn't cause any obvious symptoms, it's critical to have your blood glucose levels checked by a doctor on a frequent basis.

Improvement in insulin sensitivity, or insulin resistance, is the result of your muscles, fat, and liver cells not responding properly to insulin, a hormone produced by your digestive system that is necessary for survival and controls blood glucose (sugar) levels. In certain situations, insulin resistance can be treated and can be either temporary or chronic.

Insulin usually carries out the following actions under normal conditions:

• Your body absorbs glucose, or sugar, from the food you eat as its primary energy source.
• When glucose enters your bloodstream, your liver releases insulin in response.
• Insulin promotes the uptake of blood glucose by muscle, fat, and liver cells, allowing them to either use it immediately for energy or store it for later.
• Insulin production by the pancreas stops when glucose hits your cells and blood glucose levels drop.

Your muscle, fat, and liver cells may not react to insulin correctly for a number of reasons, which makes it difficult for them to effectively absorb or maintain glucose from your blood. Insulin resistance is this. Your pancreas then tries to fight your rising blood glucose levels through the production of more insulin. We refer to this as hyperinsulinemia.

Your blood sugar levels will remain within a healthy range as long as your pancreas is able to produce enough insulin in order to counter the weak response of your cells to insulin. Hyperglycemia, or high blood sugar, is the result of your cells being overly resistant to insulin. Over time, this can result in prediabetes and Type 2 diabetes.

Insulin resistance is linked to other medical diseases apart from Type 2 diabetes. These conditions include:

• Being overweight.
• heart-related conditions.
• The disease of nonalcoholic fatty liver.
• dysfunction of metabolism.
• PCOS, or polycystic ovarian syndrome.

Who gets impacted by insulin resistance? 

You don't need to have diabetes to have insulin resistance. It can either be chronic or transient (taking steroid medicine for a short while can create insulin resistance, for example). 

Insulin resistance appears to be primarily caused by two factors: 

an inactive lifestyle and increased body fat, particularly around the abdomen.

Individuals with Type 2 diabetes and prediabetes typically have some degree of insulin resistance. Insulin resistance can also occur in people with Type 1 diabetes.

What is the prevalence of insulin resistance?

The most common way to gauge the prevalence of insulin resistance is to look at the number of instances of prediabetes, as there are no conventional tests to check for insulin resistance and no symptoms until it progresses to prediabetes or Type 2 diabetes. In the US, 84 million adult individuals have prediabetes. That amounts to almost one in three adults.

What physical effects does insulin resistance cause?

In order for your body to maintain appropriate blood sugar levels, the development of insulin resistance usually results in hyperinsulinemia, or an increase in insulin production. Weight gain brought on by elevated insulin levels exacerbates insulin resistance.

The following conditions are also linked to hyperinsulinemia:

• Elevated amounts of triglycerides.
• Arterial hardening, or atherosclerosis.
• Elevated blood pressure, or hypertension.

In conclusion

Insulin resistance is a serious metabolic disorder that includes a failure of the body's cells to properly utilize insulin as a signal, which raises blood glucose levels. This illness frequently acts as a marker for more severe health conditions like type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular illnesses. Improving insulin sensitivity and halting the development of more serious health issues can be achieved by addressing insulin resistance by lifestyle changes such eating a balanced diet, exercising frequently, and controlling weight. Preventive management and early recognition are essential for maintaining overall health and wellbeing.