So what is causing these men and women to look like they are pregnant?
A term called “Insulin resistance” is when a diet is full of empty calories and is made up of a concoction of bad sugars be it in solids such as refined carbs, in the form of pasta, bread, cakes, rice, potatoes or in liquid form such as soft drinks, energy drinks, fresh fruit juices with out the pulp, vitamin water etc…. Our cells slowly become resistant or numb to the effects of insulin and are unable to use it effectively, leading to high blood sugar. The Beta cells in the pancreas go into overdrive and become exhausted trying to keep up with the sugar in our blood that contributes to a higher blood insulin level. Resulting in the body needing more and more insulin to keep your blood sugar levels balanced and we end up developing diabetes where insulin shots are required to help control our blood sugar levels.
Result of Insulin Resistance:
As we become insulin resistant our body begins to loose muscle, gain fat and becomes inflamed. You rapidly age faster and deteriorate resulting in the formation of all kinds of diseases such as heart, dementia and cancer and among others.
Have you ever wondered why people who are overweight and obese seem to look older than their real age? Once they loose the weight, eat healthier, and exercise they then tend to look young again.
Insulin is also known as THE FAT STORAGE HORMONE. The reason is because the cells store the sugar in the fat cells when they do not know what to do with the excess sugar and as a result we end up with the FAT BEING STORED AROUND OUR BELLY. This results in a cascade of events such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, low HDL, high triglycerides, poor sex drive, infertility and thickening of the blood, which again can result in cancer, Alzheimer and depression and other forms of disease.
What can we do about it?
Implementing small changes by adopting a healthier diet and lifestyle, we can prevent disease from occurring. We can turn the clock around and look much younger, have more energy, feel very good about ourselves, improve our blood lipid panels and all with out medication. How good is that? Is it not worth giving it a chance before we reach for that INSULIN SHOT!
Testing to see if you have pre-diabetes/ insulin resistance.
- Insulin response test: fasting at 1 hour and 2 hour glucose and insulin levels after consuming a 75g of glucose load.
- Pls note, convention methods of testing blood fasting glucose levels are not accurate because although blood glucose results may be in the normal range, over 100mg/dl and your insulin has not been tested and can be sky high. This is because some Dr’s do not measure insulin.
- NMR Lipid Profile:
Measuring particle size is extremely important and number of LDL, HDL, and Triglycerides.
It is the small dense particles that are very dangerous and are a sign if heart and diabetes problems are about to occur even if your overall cholesterol is normal with or with out medication. You should have fewer than 1000 total LDL particles and fewer than 500 small LDL particles (the dense, dangerous type) - Lipid panel: this panel shows total cholesterol (ideal >60mg/dl) LDL (ideal <70 mg/dl), HDL cholesterol (ideal > 60mg/dl and Triglycerides (ideal<100mg/dl)
- TRIGYLCERIDES /HDL Ratio: Abnormal is > 4
- TOTAL CHOLESTEROL/HDL: abnormal >3
