Do You Suffer From Insulin Resistance? It's Not The Same As Diabetes

Do you know what causes diabetes? No, it's not just because of eating too much sugar. While diabetes is characterized by high blood sugar, it is caused because of a situation called insulin resistance. This is a condition where the insulin secreted by your pancreas is unable to absorb sugar from the food you eat and so the sugar builds up in your blood stream, bringing you a risk of heart diseases with any more consumption of sugary foods. But why does it happen in the first place? Well, the functioning of your insulin can get haywire if you are obese or pregnant or very inactive, if your diet is excessively high in calories and sugar or if you take too much stress. It can also trigger because of genetic factors.

Diagnosis

You can undergo various tests to detect insulin resistance in your body. One kind is the blood sugar fasting where your glucose levels are checked after not eating for about 8 hours. Another is a random blood draw where blood samples can be taken at any time of the day to check glucose levels. Other tests are Glycosylated Haemoglobin and Oral glucose tolerance test. Unfortunately, none of these can detect insulin resistance in early stages.

People with insulin resistance are also generally low on energy, feel very hungry and find it difficult to concentrate. You may also suffer from other medical conditions like high blood pressure and high cholesterol because of this resistance.
 

Treatment

During insulin resistance, since your cells don't respond accurately to insulin hormone, the body tends to overproduce it. So the cure for insulin resistance can be of two kinds. One, that reduces the need of insulin in our body and the other where the resistance to insulin is reduced. Both these things can happen by resorting to a better diet, though to a limited extent.

There are also various medications available that either prevent the liver from releasing glucose in the blood or slows the absorption of sugar in the gut. They may also increase the sensitivity of the body cells to insulin.

Also read: How to take an insulin shot

How you can prevent it

Exercise and Lose weight - Find exercises that you like. It's important to follow weight maintenance and shed some kilos if you are overweight. Exercises like swimming, running, high intensity interval training, yoga, plank exercises are helpful.

Also read: Top 5 food tips for insulin resistance