Home Endocrine system Causes of having high insulin?

Causes of having high insulin?

by Alivia Nyhan
Published: Last Updated on

Insulin is the hormone secreted by the pancreas and produced by beta cells. This hormone is essential to mobilize the blood sugar – known as glucose – to the cells, where it will be stored to be used later as a source of energy. Insulin is extremely important for metabolizing carbohydrates and sugar and keeping blood glucose levels regulated.

A simple blood test can allow us to know the amount of insulin that is present in our blood. This test should be done on an empty stomach, when the pancreas is resting, and is known as basal insulin. The normal values of this hormone vary from 36 to 110 pmol / l mcU 5-20 / ml, depending on the measurement unit using the clinical laboratory.

A result with high levels of this hormone can be an indication of certain diseases or conditions related to the metabolism of food and the functioning of the pancreas. To find out the possible causes, we invite you to continue reading this FastlyHealarticle where we answer a very common question these days: why do I have high insulin .

Why do I have high insulin?

Esta pregunta es cada vez más común en las sociedades occidentales, y es que desde un tiempo para acá ha aumentado considerablemente el consumo de alimentos procesados, artificiales, congelados y de rápida preparación, los cuales contienen grandes cantidades de químicos y por lo general grandes cantidades de carbohidratos. A esto, hay que sumarle que el ritmo de vida actual que llevan las personas en casi todas partes del mundo es acelerado y a contrarreloj, razón por la que cuesta tener tiempo suficiente para practicar alguna disciplina deportiva y al terminar la jornada lo más práctico es abrir una cerveza y calentar una pizza congelada. Pero, ¿qué tiene que ver todo esto con que tu insulina esté alterada?

Causas de la insulina alta

The eating habits , stress and not perform any physical activity affect our health completely, but above all, are primarily responsible for the increase of insulin in your body. Let’s see: the more carbohydrates, sugar and junk food you consume, the more effort your pancreas has to make to produce more insulin in order to balance in the blood all the amount of sugar that you just put into the stomach and that must be carried into the cells.

But in addition, the work for your body is more complicated when that sugar is accompanied by fats, since both enemies enter the cells and it becomes much more difficult for the body to digest, eliminate and process these substances. Therefore, insulin increases. At this point the situation would not be so serious if this happened once a week, and the rest of the days the person did a lot of exercise that allowed him to burn the fat accumulated in the body’s cells, reduce the amount of insulin and burn the concentrated blood sugar. But since this does not happen, insulin continues to increase, the abdomen grows and fat cells, arteries and liver accumulate fat deposits. Total chaos!

But it doesn’t end here. It remains to be included that when absolutely nothing is done to control stress and have better management of emotions and worries, blood sugar rises, which increases insulin. Then the weekend comes and what better way than to remedy all our ills than with a few drinks, and here comes the icing on the cake: alcohol increases sugar levels, which is why insulin increases, not to mention that it wakes up in the organism the desire to eat, and not exactly vegetables, but fat, sugar, flour, etc.

All this panorama, nothing encouraging for your insulin, triglyceride and cholesterol values, does a lot of damage to the pancreas, stomach and liver, being able to develop some conditions that are the main causes of high insulin in the blood : insulin resistance, syndrome metabolic, type 2 diabetes. Let’s find out more about them below.

Insulin resistance

Insulin resistance , also known as hyperinsulinism , occurs when some cells in the body do not use insulin in the most effective way, which raises blood sugar levels and consequently the pancreas, increases the production of insulin. In other words, it is a vicious circle in our body that produces more sugar and more insulin to counteract each other, something that simply worsens the levels.

In addition, the problem worsens when the food we offer to the body is rich in carbohydrates and sugar, because then insulin increases more because there is more sugar to burn and the body can take up to three times what it takes to metabolize carbohydrates in a person with normal insulin. Conclusion, very slow metabolism and maximum assimilation of food: overweight. Today insulin resistance can be diagnosed alone or as part of the metabolic syndrome.

In the following article you can find advice on the exercises you should do if you have insulin resistance.

Metabolic syndrome

Metabolic syndrome is the combination of several conditions that are present in the body at the same time. Among the conditions that cause it is mainly insulin resistance, but there are also other factors that also affect, such as: overweight or obesity in the upper part of the body, specifically in the abdomen around the waist, changes in production of female and male hormones, polycystic ovaries in the case of women and problems with the thyroid gland .

Metabolic syndrome can be diagnosed when a person has more than two of the following risk factors:

  • High blood pressure.
  • Fasting glucose greater than 100 mg / dL.
  • Abdominal circumference in men greater than 100 cm, in women, greater than 90 cm.
  • Low HDL cholesterol, in men less than 50 mg / dL, in women less than 40 mg / dl.
  • Triglycerides at 150 mg / dL or more.

Metabolic syndrome is considered a condition that brings together the most important risk factors for a person to develop: hypertension, coronary artery disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes .

Type 2 diabetes

When a person has high insulin, the first thing they usually think is: do I have diabetes? And although to diagnose this pancreatic disorder it is necessary to have other risk factors, we are clear that high levels of insulin in the blood are totally linked to the predisposition to contract type 2 diabetes .

Type 2 diabetes is a degenerative disease that has no cure, characterized by high blood sugar levels. When you have type 2 diabetes, the cells of the body do not use insulin correctly and for this reason sugar is not transported to the cells, causing it to accumulate in the blood and the body is unable to use sugar for energy: there symptoms of this disease appear.

Type 2 diabetes is a disease that is practically built on the basis of poor eating habits, sedentary life and poor stress management, due to all the processes that occur in the body as a consequence of these factors and which we explained at the beginning. But diabetes also has an important trigger: it is a hereditary disease .

People with diabetes not only have high blood sugar and insulin, they also have high blood cholesterol and triglycerides, they are often overweight and do not exercise. Diabetes is a silent disease, many have it and do not know it. Its most characteristic symptoms are: fatigue, hunger, thirst, frequent urination, blurred vision, urinary tract, bladder or kidney infections.

How to lower high insulin?

The treatment for insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes is exactly the same, even, you may have high insulin and have not yet developed any of these conditions, the treatment is also the same: change the bad habits for good habits. So, we advise you:

Balanced diet

Significantly reduce the consumption of flours, carbohydrates, refined sugar and any food that turns into glucose in the body. prefers, foods that help to burn fat and sugar such as vegetables and fibers: watercress, broccoli, whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, cereals such as oats, spinach, lettuce, asparagus. It prefers proteins derived from lean meats such as fish and chicken. Eat several times a day in few servings to speed up your metabolism. Put a total pause at 4 “P”: pasta, pizza, dessert and bread. It is also important to reduce the consumption of alcoholic beverages. The best thing to do is visit a nutritionist so that according to your personal needs, they can develop a personalized diet. Find out what happens to your body when you stop sugar .

Exercise

Physical activity is essential to: accelerate metabolism, reduce insulin, cholesterol, triglyceride and blood sugar levels, burn fat, increase energy in the body, protect the health of muscles that can be affected by high levels of sugar. One hour of cardiovascular exercise five times a week is more than enough.

Lifestyle

Elevated insulin levels can be reversed, but they can always rise again. The ideal is to do, as diabetics do, turn these recommendations into a lifestyle that allows us to reduce conditions and gradually cross out risk factors from the list.

It is likely that in some cases the medical specialist will recommend the consumption of medications that help regulate high blood sugar levels, as well as cholesterol and triglycerides if necessary. High insulin levels should always be cared for by an endocrine physician.

This article is merely informative, at FastlyHeal .com we do not have the power to prescribe medical treatments or make any type of diagnosis. We invite you to see a doctor in the case of presenting any type of condition or discomfort.

If you want to read more articles similar to Why do I have high insulin , we recommend that you enter our Endocrine System category .

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