Hot New Topics > Insulin Resistance
A major reason why you can’t lose fat.

Once a person accumulates a certain amount of visceral and/or subcutaneous fat, it can start to exert a very powerful effect on the body’s metabolism. This newly acquired fat mass now acts like a major organ in its capacity to alter metabolism to suite its needs.
This new metabolic state is known as insulin resistance and refers to a lack of response (resistance) to the hormone insulin by the major tissues (muscles, liver) involved in the clearance of glucose and fat from the blood.

This state of insulin resistance creates the next major problem experienced by overweight or obese individuals who have accumulated a significant amount of visceral fat. That is once you have accumulated the excess fat you now can’t get rid of it.

The muscles and liver are primarily responsible for the clearance of glucose and fat form the blood, but if they are resistant to the insulin message, the circulating glucose and fats will be diverted into storage by fat cells for a rainy day that never comes.

Fat Cells Won’t Release the Fat

During insulin resistance, the body now needs to produce much higher levels of insulin to help clear glucose and fat from the blood. Insulin is considered to be a lipogenic (fat producing) hormone. It stimulates both the uptake of glucose and fat into the fat cells whilst inhibiting the release of fat for energy production.

This is why people who develop insulin resistance experience a continual steady expansion of their fat tissue leading to obesity. If this isn’t bad enough, these big people now find it virtually impossible to lose fat through normal dieting (calorie restriction) and exercise methods.

What is the key to unlock stored fat reserves?

The key to unlock there ability to mobilize these stored fat reserves is to lower the circulating level of insulin. Once the insulin levels are reduced enough, the fat cells will start to release their stored fat back into the circulation for the muscle and liver to start using for energy and heat production (thermogenesis or fat burning).

How Do I Lower Insulin Levels?

The major inducing factor for insulin release is the level of blood glucose. Blood glucose levels are primarily determined by the amount and type of carbohydrates (sugars, starchy foods) we consume. Therefore it is critical to modulate the amount and type of carbohydrates we eat based on the level of insulin resistance present.

The more obese the individual, as a general rule, the more insulin resistance is present. Therefore the more obese the individual the more insulin they produce in response to dietary carbohydrates. Therefore, the greater the need to restrict both the type (simple sugars, starchy foods) and the amount of carbohydrate with each meal.

Low Carb Diets

By now you have most probably been exposed to advertising of “low carb” or low GI (glycemic index) foods, made popular by the Atkins diet. These foods are typically based on a high protein content which produces a lower insulin response compared to the same amount of carbohydrate.

These low carb foods selections are only effective however if you don’t over eat them.
If however, you eat too much low carb high protein foods (total calories) you will still over produce insulin and not receive the benefit of mobilizing stored fats.

How can I burn up the mobilized fats?

If however there is an associated defect in the amount or function of muscle or in liver function, these mobilized fats will not be effectively converted into energy or heat. In this situation these circulating fats can be deposited into the liver (fatty liver) causing further liver dysfunction and increased triglyceride levels, a major risk factor for coronary heart disease and hypertension.

Your ability to burn up excess calories and fats released for fat cells is again determined by your metabolic subtype. Below are the key hormones and cytokines that regulate the ability of your muscles and liver to burning up excess fats/calories.

Estrogen to testosterone ratio
Growth Hormone
DHEA
Thyroid hormone
Interleukin 6 (IL6)
Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)

How to boost Thermo genesis (Fat Burning)

Most people interested in fat loss have seen ads for products that supposedly boost your ability to burn fat, called thermogenic products. Most of these products use some type of stimulant (caffeine, ephedra, etc) that stimulates the production of stress hormones (adrenaline and noradrenalin). These stress hormones stimulate the person’s ability to burn calories and suppress appetite. Sounds perfect. Unfortunately, the price you pay for this approach is further metabolic, behavioral disturbances and accelerated atherosclerosis (Heart disease) when used for prolonged periods.

The Safe way to Boost Thermogenesis

The key to safe effective thermogenesis is rather than boosting your production of stress hormones as discussed above, is to enhance your body’s response to your normal levels of stress hormones. This is achieved by correcting imbalances of the key hormones and cytokines (mentioned above) that regulate the tissues response to stimulating stress hormones. In this way you can burn all the excess fat and prevent the development of many chronic degenerative diseases. A much better strategy hey?

Insulin Resistance and Diabetes

Insulin resistance is also the primary mechanism responsible for the development of Type 2 Diabetes. As the tissue resistance to insulin increases, more and more insulin is secreted by the beta islet cells of the pancreas, to try and compensate for the lack of insulin effect to lower blood glucose levels. This is like continually over revving of your car’s engine, the motor eventually burns out.

Once these cells start to die off from over use, the person now can’t compensate to keep their blood glucose levels in the normal range, therefore now fulfilling the key diagnostic factor for Type 2 Diabetes. If this process is not reversed, the insulin producing beta cells will continue to die. So now these diabetic people can’t control their blood glucose with glucose lowering drugs and eventually have to resort to using insulin injections.

Therefore we see Type 2 Diabetic patients being the most sensitive to dietary carbohydrates and have a greater need to reduce their intake of high sugar or starch rich (high glycemic) carbohydrates. One of the most effective treatments for reducing excess fat in Type 2 Diabetes and improving their blood sugar control is the use of low carbohydrate ketogenic diets.

These diets restrict carbohydrates to less than 30- 40 grams per day initially, with dramatic reductions in insulin demand. This is often the quickest way to reduce their risk to diabetic complications like kidney, nerve and eye damage not to mention early death from cardiovascular disease.

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