Insulin Resistance: You Probably Have It.

OK, let's talk about the elephant in the room. It's called insulin resistance. This is the most common condition affecting US adults and no one knows about it.  I get blank stares every time I mention it. 75-80% of my patients have insulin resistance. It is the root cause of almost all common chronic diseases. It's the thread that ties them all together.
Insulin, is a hormone that allows sugar to enter cells for normal metabolism. Usually, a small squirt of it from the pancreas is all that is required to instruct the cells of the body to let sugar inside. Cells starve when sugar can't get inside. Decades of chronic exposure to highly concentrated sugar and starches gradually causes the cells of the liver and muscles to become insensitive to insulin. This is insulin resistance. To overcome insulin resistance, the pancreas has to produce and pump out more and more insulin.  The medical term for unnaturally high insulin is hyperinsulinemia. Hyperinsulinemia causes a bevy of problems. 

Got high blood pressure? weight gain? prediabetes or diabetes? I would be willing to wager you have insulin resistance. 

How is it diagnosed?  Most of the time it is diagnosed indirectly. It can be measured on an advanced lipid panel. Most of the time that isn't necessary.  If you have high triglycerides you probably have it. You don't even need to go to a lab to diagnose it though. Try this: Stand up, back straight. Now carefully, walk straight into a wall. What part of your body touches the wall first. If it was your belly, you got insulin resistance because abdominal fat causes your liver to become insensitive to insulin and high insulin causes abdominal fat. A vicious cycle. 
Insulin resistance can be controlled but not cured. The best way to control it: You guessed it, gut out sugar and starches.