Insulin Resistance, What Is It? What Can You Do About It?

4 Ways To Reverse Insulin Resistance.

4 min readAug 1, 2021

This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician.

What is insulin resistance?

Insulin Resistance is when cells in your muscles, fat, and liver don’t respond to insulin and can’t use glucose from your blood for energy. Your pancreas makes more insulin to make up for that. Making your blood sugar levels go up.

Insulin resistance syndrome, (also called, metabolic syndrome, pre-diabetes, diabetes type 2) includes a group of problems like obesity, especially belly fat. High blood sugar levels, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes. Insulin resistance can affect 1 in 3 Americans.

Symptoms.

You can’t tell by the way you feel if you have insulin resistance. You need to see a physician to get blood tests to check your blood sugar levels. Tests may include.

Fasting glucose test. This test measures your blood sugar after you haven’t eaten for at least 8 hours. Look for results measuring 100–125. 126 or higher is too high.

Oral glucose tolerance test. First, you’ll take the fasting glucose test. Then you’ll drink a sugary solution. Two hours after that, you’ll take another blood test. Look for results measuring 140–199. 200 or higher is too high.

Hemoglobin a1c test. This blood test shows your average blood sugar level for the past 3 months. Doctors use it to diagnose pre-diabetes or diabetes. If you have diabetes, it helps show whether it’s under control. You may need to take the test again to confirm the results. Looking for results measuring 5.7%-6.4%. 6.5% or higher is too high.