Insulin Resistance
topic
Insulin resistance is the condition in which cells require progressively higher concentrations of insulin to achieve the same level of glucose uptake — developing from years of hyperinsulinemia driven by chronic high-glycemic dietary patterns, excess body fat (particularly visceral adipose tissue), physical inactivity, sleep deprivation, and chronic stress — producing a state in which the pancreas must secrete more insulin to maintain blood glucose levels, with eventual pancreatic exhaustion contributing to type 2 diabetes.
Role
Insulin resistance affects an estimated 40% of the US adult population — in various stages from early (compensated by pancreatic hyperinsulinemia, no glucose abnormality yet) to advanced (prediabetes and type 2 diabetes) — and the early stages produce measurable cognitive impairment, energy instability, fat deposition, cardiovascular risk, and hormonal disruption that most affected people have never connected to their metabolic state. Most people discover insulin resistance only when fasting glucose reaches the diabetic range — at which point years of organ damage have already occurred — because pre-diabetic insulin resistance is not standard practice to screen for despite affecting 88 million Americans.