Insulin Resistance and Its Influence In The Body's Biochemistry
An analogy of insulin resistance, and how this resistance applies to our health.
There has been much commotion about rape culture and sexual violence these days. A lot of the (unfair) blame has been placed on women who dress sexy, and men who end up giving in to their urges, as if it was the man’s right to do what he wanted.
Anyone with a shred of decency would actually know that men are not animals and have the ability to exhibit some levels of self-control - victim blaming is just one way of evading responsibility.
While there can (and ought to) be a whole discourse about how men ought to keep their equipment in their pants and exert a much higher level of self-control than they are actually exhibiting these days, that’s not the focus here.
The focus right here is the resistance that’s involved.
Because when there is resistance, we know that the process will not be proceeding smoothly.
If a woman resists a man’s advances, she isn’t likely to want to have sex with him. Or even entertain him much, for that matter.
If the man forcibly breaks through all her resistances to have sex with her, I’d consider that rape. Even if it doesn’t get there, it can be construed as harassment. We know rape or harassment are criminal offences. People who commit rape or sexual harassment ought to face criminal courts for their inability to respect boundaries.
We therefore can consider that a “resistance” means something’s up. If you know that I love eating ice cream but you see me resisting it one day, you’ll be left wondering why I resist eating something that I love.
Perhaps I’m conscious of my weight and I want to lose it. Perhaps I’m thinking that ice cream is unhealthy for me. But when I do start consciously and consistently resisting the lure of ice cream, you would also figure out that something’s changed within me - and that all starts from my mind, which we all are unable to see.
We can’t see that in the case of Type 2 diabetes as well. In a healthy human body, insulin is a biochemical that is produced from pancreatic beta cells and signals our cells to take in glucose from the blood at appropriate times. For the most part, each cell is obedient to the signal. Things work smoothly and are humming along. Blood glucose levels are well maintained at healthy levels — a more technical description of the entire process is found in this journal article here.
So if we’re producing X amount of insulin, the cells take in Y amount of glucose from the blood.
However, if one is experiencing insulin resistance, their cells would end up taking in less than Y amount of glucose from the blood – which then leads to an accumulation of glucose in the blood over time.
If that ain’t diabetes, I don’t know what you be calling it!
Of course, somehow the medical field decided along the way that if the body’s cells aren’t responding properly to the current prevailing insulin signal, then the solution would be to introduce more insulin.
But does that really help? One can wonder.
Because if a woman resists a man’s advances to have sex, but a man forcibly breaks through those resistances to have sex with her by hook or by crook, we consider that to be rape.
When a cell resists the insulin signal, and therefore we pump in even more insulin to push through that resistance, what on earth are we doing with that cell, you reckon?
The problem in this case is that we aren’t even sitting down to understand or figure out why the cell is resisting the insulin signal in the first place.
When one is experiencing mild chronic inflammation, for instance, their production of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin 1-beta (IL-1β) are increased.
These cytokines do play an effect in increasing the insulin resistance of a cell – we can find evidence of that in this article for TNF-α and this article for IL-1β.
Insulin would not directly affect the production of these pro-inflammatory cytokines – otherwise, wouldn’t injecting all that extra insulin be a cure for Type 2 diabetes already?
It isn’t. And when that inflammatory issue isn’t dealt with, the resistance to the insulin signal continues to mount. Diabetics remain diabetic, to the point where a million and one simultaneous insulin jabs may not even be useful in forcing the cell to take in more glucose.
The problem is that we do know what happens with all that resistance when it is left unchecked. The inflammatory issues mount, and they tend to amplify their way out of control.
So when we see a Type 2 diabetic, we can be sure of a few things:
Their inflammatory response is suboptimal, and it is generating a resistance to the insulin feeding signals.
Hence the cellular uptake of glucose is affected, and the cells in the body are taking in LESS THAN optimal amounts of glucose for the cell to function properly.
A reduced glucose (fuel) intake for the cell indicates a reduced rate of energy generation, hence the diabetic gets lethargic more quickly.
But at the same time, there will be an accumulation of glucose in the blood because the cells ain’t taking in enough glucose.
And this additional glucose is all reactive and can react with other biomolecules in the body to further amplify the inflammation response, which means that we’ll intensify Step 1 all over again - and it becomes a vicious cycle that keeps on amplifying in due time.
Is that not like the Rime of the Ancient Mariner now?
Water, water, everywhere, but yet not a drop to drink!
The problem with the persistent inflammation behind the insulin resistance has to be addressed first and foremost before the symptoms of Type 2 diabetes can even be addressed!
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