Pre-Diabetes and Insulin-Resistance

Warning: include(/home/molec2/public_html/diabetespost/includes/inline-adsense.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/diabet/public_html/pre-diabetes/includes/body.php on line 17

Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/home/molec2/public_html/diabetespost/includes/inline-adsense.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/diabet/public_html/pre-diabetes/includes/body.php on line 17

Insulin resistance is a asymptomatic and silent condition that increases the risk of developing diabetes and heart disease. By learning about insulin resistance you can make lifestyle changes that will help you prevent diabetes and other future health problems.

Pre-Diabetes and Insulin

When you eat, the food is broken down into simple sugars such as glucose, which is the main source of energy for the cells in your body. However, your cells cannot use glucose without insulin, a hormone produced by the beta cells in pancreas. Insulin signals to the cells to take up glucose and convert it to energy so that they can use it. However, if the pancreas does not make enough insulin or the cells lose their ability to respond to insulin, the cells cannot use glucose. As a result, after you eat excess amounts of glucose builds up in the bloodstream, causing hyperglycemia (high blood sugar levels) which set the stage for diabetes.

Obesity and being overweight affect the way insulin works in your body. Extra fat tissue such as extra abdonminal fat makes the organs and tissues in your body respond less to insulin and prevent it from getting to those cells. As a result your body resistant becomes resistant to the action of insulin, and this is also called insulin-resistance. Exercise, weight loss, and proper diet will help in improving insulin sensitivity, allowing insulin to work well and reduce your hyperglycemia.

[Top]

How are insulin resistance, pre-diabetes, and type 2 diabetes linked?

If you have insulin resistance, your muscle, fat, and liver cells do not use insulin properly. The pancreas tries to keep up with the demand for insulin by producing more. Eventually, the pancreas cannot keep up with the body's need for insulin, and excess glucose builds up in the bloodstream. Many people with insulin resistance have high levels of blood glucose and high levels of insulin circulating in their blood at the same time.

People with blood glucose levels that are higher than normal but not yet in the diabetic range have "pre-diabetes." Doctors sometimes call this condition impaired fasting glucose (IFG) or impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), depending on the test used to diagnose it. In a cross-section of U.S. adults aged 40 to 74 tested during the period 1988 to 1994, 33.8 percent had IFG, 15.4 percent had IGT, and 40.1 percent had pre-diabetes (IGT or IFG or both). Applying these percentages to the 2000 U.S. population, about 35 million adults aged 40 to 74 would have IFG, 16 million would have IGT, and 41 million would have pre-diabetes.

If you have pre-diabetes, you have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, formerly called adult-onset diabetes or noninsulin-dependent diabetes. Studies have shown that most people with pre-diabetes go on to develop type 2 diabetes within 10 years, unless they lose 5 to 7 percent of their body weight—which is about 10 to 15 pounds for someone who weighs 200 pounds—by making modest changes in their diet and level of physical activity. People with pre-diabetes also have a higher risk of heart disease.

Type 2 diabetes is sometimes defined as the form of diabetes that develops when the body does not respond properly to insulin, as opposed to type 1 diabetes, in which the pancreas makes no insulin at all. At first, the pancreas keeps up with the added demand by producing more insulin. In time, however, it loses the ability to secrete enough insulin in response to meals.

Insulin resistance can also occur in people who have type 1 diabetes, especially if they are overweight.

[Top]

What causes insulin resistance?

Because insulin resistance tends to run in families, we know that genes are partly responsible. Excess weight also contributes to insulin resistance because too much fat interferes with muscles' ability to use insulin. Lack of exercise further reduces muscles' ability to use insulin.

Many people with insulin resistance and high blood glucose have excess weight around the waist, high LDL (bad) blood cholesterol levels, low HDL (good) cholesterol levels, high levels of triglycerides (another fat in the blood), and high blood pressure, all conditions that also put the heart at risk. This combination of problems is referred to as the metabolic syndrome, or the insulin resistance syndrome (formerly called Syndrome X).