insulin sensitivity

[xtinaunasty]

I have seen a lot of people talking about insulin sensitivity and I was wondering what it is exactly...?

[powerliftmike]

It is something like how responsive your muscle cells are to insulin . Essentially, if you eat high GI junk all the time your body will be constiently having huge insulin surges and drops. Your muscle cells will stop 'listening' to insulin and so insulin cannot 'feed' your cells nutrients as well.

The opposite is called insulin resistance (when this happens) and I think it is the front-runner to diabetes. So you always want to be insulin sensitive.

[decadbal]

you want a balance.. either end is bad..

[xtinaunasty]

so if you have high insulin sensitivity it is bad?

[SexyKitty]

It is something like how responsive your muscle cells are to insulin . Essentially, if you eat high GI junk all the time your body will be constiently having huge insulin surges and drops. Your muscle cells will stop 'listening' to insulin and so insulin cannot 'feed' your cells nutrients as well.

The opposite is called insulin resistance (when this happens) and I think it is the front-runner to diabetes. So you always want to be insulin sensitive.

The truth is that we really do not know what causes insulin resistance, or in other words a decrease in insulin sensitivity. There is no evidence that it is linked to eating high glycemic foods, all we know is that it is worsened by obesity and lack of physical activity. Insulin resistance is just one of the many risk factors that makes up Syndrome X or Metabolic Syndrome.

To keep it simple, insulin is like a key that unlocks our cell doors to allow diffusion of nutrients accross the cell membrane. If someone is insulin resistant, insulin still binds to the receptor on our cells but the cells do not adequately respond to the insulin and the proper transport of glucose does not occur. Our pancreas then compensates by producing more insulin until finally glucose is transported. Over time, as insulin resistance gets worse and our pancreas can not work as hard (due to beta cell degeneration), glucose accumulates in the blood and eventually diabetes is the usual end result (95% of type II diabetics have insulin resistance)

Excercise increases insulin sensitivity (or reduces insulin resistance if you want to think of it that way) as do some drugs. In some cases, the opposite to having insulin resistance would be to overly insulin sensitive, these individuals suffer from hypoglycemia. Most people are somewhere in between the two.

[powerliftmike]

The truth is that we really do not know what causes insulin resistance, or in other words a decrease in insulin sensitivity. There is no evidence that it is linked to eating high glycemic foods, all we know is that it is worsened by obesity and lack of physical activity. Insulin resistance is just one of the many risk factors that makes up Syndrome X or Metabolic Syndrome.

To keep it simple, insulin is like a key that unlocks our cell doors to allow diffusion of nutrients accross the cell membrane. If someone is insulin resistant, insulin still binds to the receptor on our cells but the cells do not adequately respond to the insulin and the proper transport of glucose does not occur. Our pancreas then compensates by producing more insulin until finally glucose is transported. Over time, as insulin resistance gets worse and our pancreas can not work as hard (due to beta cell degeneration), glucose accumulates in the blood and eventually diabetes is the usual end result (95% of type II diabetics have insulin resistance)

Excercise increases insulin sensitivity (or reduces insulin resistance if you want to think of it that way) as do some drugs. In some cases, the opposite to having insulin resistance would be to overly insulin sensitive, these individuals suffer from hypoglycemia. Most people are somewhere in between the two.

Nicely said.

[Giantz11]

Yes and insulin sensitivity is good. It means the body has to produce less insulina as well to get the job done.

[xtinaunasty]

wow thanks for explaining sexykitty!