Have you heard the term, insulin resistance before?
Insulin resistance has to do with blood sugar control and how your body metabolizes different substances.
Once sugar or glucose enters your bloodstream, here is what happens:
- The pancreas secretes insulin, which shunts the glucose your body doesn’t use to either fat storage, muscle, or the liver.
- When there is more sugar in the bloodstream than what the pancreas can keep up with, the body calls for more and more insulin.
- Pretty soon, the body becomes irresponsive to the increased amounts of insulin being secreted, leading to insulin resistance.
- As a result, insulin levels decrease dramatically, and there is an inordinate amount of glucose left in the bloodstream. This can lead to nerve and blood vessel damage, perpetuating inflammation and thereby lays the groundwork for a plethora of autoimmune and chronic conditions, such as Hashimoto’s, heart disease and dementia.
Therefore, it’s of utmost importance to look at related lab values: fasting glucose, triglycerides, LDL cholesterol, and insulin.
How Functional Medicine Can Help Your Insulin Resistance
Functional Medicine can help you manage insulin resistance through diet. It can also help other underlying risk factors for insulin resistance such as toxicity, inflammation, and hormones. We partner with you to uncover your health history and get to the root causes behind your insulin resistance. Based on what we find we will create a plan to help you address underlying risk factors and lifestyle changes to support healthy insulin function.
Contact us or schedule a consultation.