This is by far one of the most common conditions I see in my practice, yet many patients and clients have never heard of it. Whether we are understanding and managing Obesity, PCOS, Fatty Liver (MASLD), or Type 2 Diabetes, there is a common thread: Insulin Resistance (IR). What people have heard of is “metabolism being stuck”, and while that is mostly sales jargon, IR is often a very real root cause and a big driver of inflammation.
(Short on time? Click here for The Bottom Line)
In this three part series, we will explore everything there is to know about IR, and more importantly, what you can do about it. Step one, understanding what IR is and how things work normally.
Let’s take a look at how your body handles energy. When you eat, food travels down your esophagus (food pipe), gets to your stomach, and is digested and broken down into energy… this is mostly in the form of glucose (sugar), which is the primary fuel source for your cells. While this is all good and normal, this fuel/glucose does not magically fly to your cells by itself, it needs a way to get there. Enter the transportation system.
I like to think of this like a bus: “The Insulin School Bus”. Insulin (hormone) is released by your pancreas (organ beside your stomach), to act as a school bus. Its job is to pick up “students” (aka glucose) from the terminal (bloodstream) and drop them to their homes (your cells). When things work as intended, the bus pulls up, cell doors open, students go in and are turned into energy, helping us function.
Insulin Resistance happens when those cell doors get “stuck”. The bus arrives at the cells, but the doors won’t open. The students have nowhere to go, so they stay on the bus, which really means they stay floating in your bloodstream. This eventually leads to High Blood Sugar. Your pancreas (the bus terminal) sees the crowded streets and sends out even more buses (Hyperinsulinemia), but more buses don’t help if the cell doors are still shut.
Over time, more and more buses full of sugar build up in your blood stream, leading to inflammation, injury to cells, and even conditions such as Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, and the other examples listed above.
It is important to understand this pathway. Not to get a diagnosis or chase a blood test, but educating yourself about what IR is and how it works is the first step to reclaiming your metabolic health.
You’ll learn more about who is at risk of IR, how to tell if you might have signs of it, and even how to reverse it, over the next few weeks. Stay tuned!
The Bottom Line
When it comes to your metabolic health, Insulin Resistance (IR) might be the silent killer holding you back. In IR, your body’s cells stop responding to insulin, which leaves you with more sugar in your bloodstream and less being converted to usable energy to fuel your body. IR drives inflammation and chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes, but it can be reversed. More next week.