Metabolic and Mental Health

Here’s What Makes Insulin an Ally, but Insulin Resistance a Foe.

Lose visceral fat and stay healthy by preventing insulin resistance and making the body more insulin sensitive.

Purpose of the Article

This article highlights the importance of the insulin hormone for the body and the brain. Furthermore, it highlights the adverse effects of insulin resistance on our metabolic and mental health and offers practical ways to make the body more insulin sensitive.

Inspiration for the Story

I touched on insulin and insulin resistance in almost all my metabolic and neurological health articles. I am pleased that these stories found many readers and brought me new subscribers.

Those who missed my previous articles on blood sugar and insulin management comment that they desire to eliminate insulin from their metabolism and seek ways to do that.

Unfortunately, some misleading articles on social media show insulin as an enemy of the body and depict it as a useless hormone. To clarify these misconceptions, I explain the significance of insulin for our metabolism.

My goal is to add clarity to the value of insulin hormone and practical tips to make our bodies more insulin sensitive, as insulin resistance is a known risk factor for metabolic disorders.

Insulin is critical for the body and the brain.

In this section, I highlight the critical functions of insulin in the body and brain so that we better understand the problem of insulin resistance in the subsequent section.

The human body created insulin for several purposes as part of its intelligence. However, with the wrong practices, some of us managed to make our bodies insulin-resistant.

Therefore, people might think that insulin is a useless or even harmful hormone. It is far from the truth. Insulin is a friend, not an enemy.

Since the early 1920s, we learned that insulin is an intricate hormone made up of 51 amino acids maintaining glucose balance, cell growth, and overall metabolism. So totally eliminating insulin release will adversely impact our metabolism and cell growth. Therefore, it is a critical hormone for our health.

The muscle-building effects of insulin are well documented in the medical literature and well known in the fitness communities. Therefore some bodybuilders even attempted to misuse insulin to grow excessive muscles.

As informed by this paper, “insulin inhibits catabolism in muscle and liver by increasing the synthesis of glycogen and proteins and promoting the entry of glycogen and amino acids into muscle cells before an event, thereby improving stamina.”

In addition to feeding muscles with necessary glucose and amino acids, insulin also contributes to the body to store energy for emergencies. So insulin delivers the unused energy to adipose tissue for storage. This is an evolutionary process for humans to survive.

However, the less known and spoken physiological role of insulin is promoting bone development. We know that osteoporosis is a significant cause of age-related fractures causing increased mortality and morbidity.

As informed by this review and experimental paper, “Over the past decade, numerous investigations have implicated insulin in normal bone growth, and recent studies have described the advantages of administering insulin locally to increase bone formation.”

Insulin also plays a critical role in the brain. It maintains glucose and energy homeostasis. As documented in this paper, “Insulin has two essential functions in the brain. It controls food intake and regulates cognitive functions, particularly memory.”

The paper highlights that “notably, defects in insulin signaling in the brain may contribute to neurodegenerative disorders. Insulin resistance may damage the cognitive system and lead to dementia states.”

As documented in this paper, “in addition to glucose metabolism and the energy balance in the brain, insulin is reported to control other vital physiological functions, such as neuronal plasticity, memory processing, and cognition.”

Here’s why insulin resistance matters and how we can prevent it from occurring.

First, I’d like to briefly mention why and how insulin resistance occurs. Then I will highlight why it matters for our health and how we can prevent it. Even better, how we can make our bodies more insulin sensitive holistically using healthy lifestyle habits.

A — It all starts with blood glucose.

The bloodstream can handle tiny amounts of glucose at a given time. When the glucose levels pass the threshold, the body calls for insulin to rescue it. The reason is excess glucose in the bloodstream is toxic. Insulin’s primary role is to distribute excess blood glucose to various cells.

Insulin first knocks on the doors of muscle cells as they are precious to the body. The process continues until the cells say enough. Then insulin diverts the excess glucose to the fat cells.

Unlike muscle cells, fat cells are more receptive to glucose, and they hardly say no until they are incredibly full. The body can quickly turn glucose to fat molecules for storage. So this means that excessive and unused calories turn into body fat.

B — How Insulin Resistance Occur

Now, let me explain insulin resistance within this context. Insulin resistance happens when muscle and fat cells stop responding to insulin signals. The pancreas creates more insulin to cope with the excessive glucose in the bloodstream and the glycogen. Then the body experience hyperinsulinemia due to excessive insulin releases.

When the body becomes insulin resistant, numerous problems start manifesting. The most common problem is visceral fat accumulation. If not addressed timely, an insulin-resistant body might eventually become obese.

Then, excessive and constant visceral fat accumulation loses homeostasis and starts causing more severe issues such as metabolic syndrome, fatty liver disease, type II diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and neurodegenerative disorders.

C — What is the solution to insulin resistance?

The solution to lower visceral fat and reduce the risks of these severe disorders is to address the insulin resistance problem and find effective ways to remain insulin sensitive.

Our waistline is an indicator of insulin resistance or sensitivity. As mentioned in this source, “Wider Waistline May Mean Shorter Lifespan.”

I explained the solutions in the next section.

D — Three Lifestyle Habits to Address Insulin Resistance

Three critical lifestyle habits can make the body insulin resistant or sensitive.

The first lifestyle factor is food. As one of the reasons for insulin resistance is difficulty in handling excessive blood glucose, reducing food intake is a viable solution. However, not all food has the same effect on blood glucose.

The most significant contributor to blood glucose is refined carbohydrates which can quickly become sugar. The second contributor is protein. Interestingly, fats have the lowest impact on blood glucose hence causing negligible insulin release within the blood sugar control context.

The second lifestyle factor is exercise. Since insulin distributes the blood sugar first to muscles, keeping muscles active via workouts keeps the cells desiring glucose. So the more active the muscles, the more glucose they consume and keep the doors open to insulin signals preventing insulin resistance.

The third lifestyle factor is sleep. Unlike food and exercise, sleep impacts insulin resistance indirectly via another master hormone called cortisol. As I documented before, unless we beat the cortisol monster, fat loss remains a dream.

Sleep deprivation is known to elevate cortisol levels. During the elevated cortisol phase, the body uses more glucose instead of fat as an energy source. The insulin needs to be released more frequently.

One of the practical solutions to reduce elevated cortisol is to get restorative sleep and reduce chronic stress as much as possible via relaxation and mindfulness techniques such as meditation.

E — How to Make the Body More Insulin Sensitive Sustainably

Similar to preventing insulin resistance, we can make the body insulin sensitive with the same lifestyle habits.

The first approach is to have a customized diet supporting our metabolic needs and giving us enough energy, not too much energy.

Therefore, the bloodstream will not have too much glucose, and the pancreas will not need to create too much insulin to deal with it. One of the effective diets is the ketogenic diet. However, it might not suit everyone. Therefore, customizing our diet is essential.

The second approach is to consume food in a specific window. It is known as intermittent fasting or time-restricted eating. This regimen allows insulin to be released less frequently.

The third option is staying active. One of the most effective workouts for many people is walking. If we walk every day for 10 to 20 minutes after the main meals, we can significantly make the body insulin sensitive.

To inspire my readers, I documented and shared the case of a mature couple who reversed their diabetes and made their bodies insulin sensitive by mainly adopting an active lifestyle. Here’s How a Mature-Age Couple Reversed Diabetes and Trimmed Their Bodies with Lifestyle Habits.

If we eat the right amount and quality of food, work out daily, and get restorative sleep, we can not only get rid of insulin resistance but also keep the body insulin-sensitive lifetime unless we have underlying conditions such as severe problems with the pancreas or other organs.

Conclusions and Takeaways

This article’s critical message is that insulin is a vital hormone for the body. As I mentioned, it has many functions. Therefore, we need to be careful with sloppy statements like the attempts to eliminate insulin totally from the body. It is unattainable. It is possible, but the ramification would be the end of life.

Insulin resistance is a critical health condition creating risks for severe disorders such as metabolic syndrome, fatty liver disease, type II diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancers, and neurodegenerative diseases.

I see insulin as a friend but insulin resistance as a rival that we need to defeat. With support from qualified healthcare professionals, it is possible to eliminate insulin resistance.

For healthy people, the best approach is to keep the body insulin sensitive with healthy lifestyle habits sustainably.

These habits include nutritious food, refraining from excess calories (especially from refined carbs), keeping the body active with regular workouts, and having a restorative sleep and rest daily.

I explained the details of these points in an article titled Three Tips to Eliminate Insulin Resistance and Shrink Waistline.

I also introduced the intricacies of hormones and explained why the fat loss has nothing to do with calories but more to do with hormones. Understanding the role of adiponectin in fat loss and inflammatory health conditions can be helpful.

Another critical hormone, glucagon, plays an equal role to insulin in managing blood sugar. I documented it in another article titled Here’s Why Understanding the Role of Glucagon Is Vital for Type II Diabetes.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

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