The podcast explores the concept of metabolic health and insulin resistance, emphasizing the balance of biochemical processes in the body. It discusses the impact of carbohydrates on fuel sources and the role of insulin in metabolic flexibility. Additionally, it identifies physical signs of insulin resistance, highlighting the importance of proactive health management.
Metabolic health is the balance of body's chemical reactions, impacted by insulin resistance.
Insulin, influenced by diet and sleep habits, determines body's fuel usage and links to metabolic disorders.
Deep dives
Understanding Metabolic Health and Insulin Resistance
Metabolic health is crucial, with the metabolic syndrome affecting 50% of adults globally. This syndrome includes high blood glucose, waist circumference, triglycerides, blood pressure, and low HDL cholesterol. These factors are linked by insulin resistance, central to the metabolic syndrome. Insulin resistance, marked by cells not responding to insulin and elevated insulin levels, drives metabolic health disorders.
Metabolic Flexibility and Insulin's Role
Metabolic flexibility, the body's ability to shift between using fats and glucose as fuel sources, is essential for health. Food intake affects the body's primary fuel source, shifting between fat burning and sugar burning. Insulin, a key player, determines fuel usage, with elevated insulin levels indicative of metabolic issues like insulin resistance.
Challenges in Recognizing Insulin Resistance
Misconceptions around insulin resistance focusing on glucose rather than insulin have hindered early detection. Elevated insulin levels in response to high glucose levels worsen insulin resistance. Clinical interventions that aim to lower glucose levels can paradoxically increase insulin resistance, exacerbating chronic diseases.
Causes of Widespread Insulin Resistance
Our lifestyle choices, particularly diet and sleep habits, play a significant role in the global prevalence of insulin resistance. Dietary habits triggering insulin resistance are compounded by insufficient sleep. Improving understanding of the origins and consequences of insulin resistance is vital to addressing the widespread health issue.
The title for today is focusing on Insulin Resistance in the Metabolic Syndrome, and I could describe that another way, which is just kind of understanding metabolic health and that’s at the heart of what I wanted to focus on for the time that we have during the lesson itself.
Alright, so first of all, metabolic health. We’ve all heard the term metabolism a lot. It is a buzzword, it is a word that we hear perhaps too often and even to the point that it’s often misused.
Metabolism, just to be very precise, is the balance of all of the chemical reactions that are happening in the body. There are biochemical reactions in every cell that are trying to build up molecules. Those are called anabolic reactions or anabolism, and there are chemical biochemical processes that are degrading molecules, breaking them down. That is catabolism and metabolism is the fusion or the balance of all of those things. The sum of all of those reactions.
Now with metabolic health, we’re starting to get more specific to the topic.