Insulin Resistance: When the Solution Becomes the Problem

Imagine you're trying to text a friend to make plans for a girl's night out, but with each message, their responses come slower and slower, until some don't come at all.

That slowing communication is similar to how insulin resistance works in your body.

Insulin keeps sending signals, but your cells start to respond slower, impacting how your body uses sugar.

Today, we'll explore what insulin really does, why sometimes your cells start ignoring its calls, and what this means for your overall health.

So let’s start with what insulin is.

To put it simply, Insulin is an essential hormone that our pancreas produces to regulate our blood sugar levels by helping cells absorb glucose for energy.

It's kind of the body's overseer for keeping our blood sugar in check, making sure it moves from our bloodstream into our cells where it's converted into energy.

Think of insulin as the key that unlocks our cells, allowing glucose—our body's fuel—to get inside.

So, after you eat and your blood sugar goes up, your pancreas gets the signal to release insulin into your blood.

This process ensures your body effectively uses the digested food for energy.

Besides helping muscle, fat, and liver cells absorb glucose, insulin has a hand in how our body stores excess sugar and even affects the liver's glucose production, keeping everything in balance.

Now, here's the twist: sometimes, our cells get a bit stubborn and don't react to insulin as they should.

This messes with the glucose entry into cells, leading it to pile up in the blood.

In response, our pancreas goes into overdrive, pumping out more insulin. This imbalance can result in a condition where there's too much insulin in the blood if our sugar levels are consistently elevated. [hyperinsulinemia]

If this resistance keeps up, we're looking at elevated blood glucose levels, or hyperglycemia, which can be a slippery slope to prediabetes and Type 2 diabetes over time.

So, in a nutshell, insulin is super important for keeping our body's energy balance in check, but it's a delicate balance that can tip into health issues if we're not careful.

It's a bit like having the right key, but if the lock starts to stick, that key isn't going to help much.

This is where Insulin resistance comes into the picture as a bit of a sneaky troublemaker.

Your body gives the cold shoulder to insulin, the hormone that your pancreas rolls out to keep your blood sugar level in check.

Imagine insulin knocking on the doors of your muscle, fat, and liver cells, asking them to let glucose in, and these cells just do not bother to answer. That's insulin resistance.

What makes it more complicated are the factors leading to insulin resistance, which range from the genetics you've been dealt to the lifestyle choices you make.

Lifestyle is really the key factor because remember while our DNA lays the foundation, our lifestyle builds the house -it's our choice whether it's built from straw or brick.

Think straw being processed food and lots of sitting on the couch scrolling social media and brick being whole real foods and plenty of safe movement daily.

So when your cells start playing ‘hard to get’ with insulin, refusing to let glucose in, which then leads to a build-up of glucose in your blood...it’s time to listen.

And when your pancreas can't keep up with the demand for more insulin, issues like prediabetes and type 2 diabetes aren't far behind.

Most of the time, insulin resistance is a silent player, showing no signs until it escalates.

So if we know we can influence our genes and it's our modern lifestyle we need to address, how do we do that?

One of the best places to start is our Nutrition Integration.

Our diets have drastically shifted over the last century with more processed foods, refined sugars, and a huge increase in grain consumption, thanks to the Agricultural Revolution.

We’ve veered a long way from what our ancestors were eating, and our bodies are still catching up.

Chris Kresser, a prominent figure in health and nutrition circles, talks a lot about how our shift from hunter-gatherer to farmer messed with our health.

11,000 years ago, we decided to farm instead of hunt and gather, and while that was great for building towns and communities, our bodies were like, "Wait, what?" Suddenly, we're eating way different foods, and not moving around as much, and our health started to dip.

So it seems like our great-great-grandparents had it right with their varied diet and active lifestyle.

So the way we've changed our diet over thousands of years might just have something to do with modern problems like insulin resistance.

Integrating nutrition effectively into our diets means prioritizing the right kinds of carbs—think vegetables, fruits, legumes, and for some dairy over options loaded with added fats, sugars, or sodium.

If you eat grains, swap refined grains for whole ones to dodge insulin resistance. And if you absolutely must use flour, reach for the 100 percent whole grain kind or experiment with coconut or almond flour.

Now, let's talk fats—because not all fats are created equal. Research underscores the value of picking the right types of fats, specifically unsaturated ones over saturated and trans varieties.

Embracing a diet rich in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats from sources like olive oil, avocados, and nuts, can help manage insulin resistance by improving glycemic control.

And, don’t skimp on omega-3 fatty acids; aim for at least two servings of wild-caught fatty fish weekly, incorporating choices like salmon, mackerel, or sardines.

Plus foods like walnuts, chia seeds, and flaxseeds are fantastic plant-based omega-3 sources.

Emphasizing healthy proteins in our diet is equally vital.

So really take a look at your nutrition integration and what's on the end of your fork. Each bite does count and can be the difference between migraine and migraine freedom.

Back to insulin resistance…It’s important to know Insulin resistance isn't just a concern for those with diabetes as many people think.

It can happen to anyone and can be a short-term issue brought on by food choices as we’ve just learned, but what you may not know is it can actually be influenced by certain medications.

Think about how many medications you take for migraines, then how many meds you take for side effects of those medications, and prescriptions for other health conditions.

What if among these, there's one that's inducing insulin resistance —one of the underlying causes of the migraines you're aiming to alleviate in the first place?

Medications, including steroids, CGRPs, Triptans, specific blood pressure treatments, and some HIV medications, have been known to trigger insulin resistance.

Besides meds, some key culprits for insulin resistance include excess body fat, particularly around the waist, and an inactive lifestyle.

If your family tree includes members with prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, or PCOS, you might be more inclined to meet insulin resistance down the road.

Plus, hormonal imbalances can mess with how your body handles insulin. A prime example is hypothyroidism, where an underactive thyroid slows down your metabolism and can lead to insulin resistance.

So, while insulin resistance can be challenging, understanding it is the first step toward managing it because it has a way of creeping up on you, disguising itself with a bunch of symptoms that don't seem to connect at first look.

People experiencing insulin resistance might notice weight fluctuations, darker patches of skin especially around the armpits and neck, acne [acanthosis nigricans], abnormal menstrual cycles, ovarian cysts, excessive body hair, and cravings for sweets and salty foods.

Other common signs include feeling tired all the time, an increase in thirst and hunger, frequent urination, tingling in hands and feet, yeast infections, and blurred vision

Understanding these details not only helps in recognizing insulin resistance but also in taking proactive steps to manage or even prevent it through thoughtful changes to your lifestyle and diet.

Navigating insulin levels can be quite the balancing act.

To pin down insulin resistance, doctors might run a few tests alongside checking your glucose levels. Insulin and C-peptide tests are common go-tos, and these can also be part of a glucose tolerance test.

Often though the first step is pretty simple—just take a look at what you're eating and how much you're moving. Try tweaking things there and see how you feel. And of course, if you're worried about anything, definitely chat with a member of your healthcare team.

If you are noticing some worrisome signs like breaking out in a sweat, heart palpitations, blurry vision, or sudden bouts of dizziness this could be hypoglycemia talking, where your blood sugar dips below 70 milligrams per deciliter. In cases like these, checking insulin levels is key.

But here’s the catch: both low and high insulin levels spell trouble.

When they're too low, your liver goes on a glucose-making frenzy, leading to an overflow of blood sugar—this is a telltale sign of type 1 diabetes.

On the flip side, high insulin levels point to insulin resistance and the lurking shadow of prediabetes, not to mention unwanted weight gain and inflammation.

While experts differ on what the magic number for fasting insulin should be, staying below five microunits per milliliter seems to be the consensus to keep prediabetes at bay.

Insulin resistance is no friend of ours, often BFFs with obesity, high blood pressure, and elevated blood fats. Left unchecked, it worsens over time. Our poor pancreatic beta cells—responsible for pumping out insulin—start to feel the burnout.

If things keep heading south, the pancreas throws in the towel, unable to produce enough insulin to beat the resistance. This escalates to higher blood sugar levels, edging from prediabetes right into the grips of type 2 diabetes.

We've gone through a wealth of information today, so let's pause for a moment to ensure we've fully grasped everything.

Managing insulin resistance and maintaining healthy insulin levels are crucial steps toward reducing chronic inflammation which in turn will bring relief from your migraines.

By focusing on safe movement daily and incorporating complex carbohydrates, choosing unsaturated fats over saturated and trans fats, and prioritizing healthy proteins in our diet you can make a big impact on your pain levels and your future health.

For a deeper dive into your nutrition integration and insulin resistance concerns, along with in-depth discussions on more topics like these, backed by scientific information, join us over in the Migraine Freedom™ Community Membership or the Freedom From Migraines Method® Program to see real results.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Debbie Waidl is the Owner of In The Balance Health Coaching LLC, and Founder of The Freedom From Migraines Method™ & The Migraine Freedom Protocol™
She supports busy moms living with Migraines.

Debbie will uncover what is holding them back from migraine freedom so they can live their life pain and symptom free, work productively, spend the time they want with family and friends, and stop missing out on the things they enjoy.

A message from Debbie:
"I was once right where you are now. 100% believing there was NO WAY to end migraines and my only option was to learn how to live with them or find that magic pill that maybe would work for a while. If anyone told me back then that I could end my pain once and for all, I would have called BS and popped another pill!

Skeptical times 10 was my middle name for sure because when you try it all and everyone tells you they can help you and they don’t. You stop believing… you lose HOPE!

I now realize I was approaching my migraines all backward.

I was trying to cover up symptoms versus trying to end my pain."

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