All About Hyperinsulinemia and Insulin Resistance

Hyperinsulinemia is an insulin overdose. This can be caused by insulin resistance – the scenario wherein the body does not listen to insulin anymore, so the body produces more insulin.

Hyperinsulinemia or high insulin level and insulin resistance are related illnesses. The pancreas has beta cells that produce insulin, which in turn pushes the sugar from the blood to the cells. However, when the cells of the body are resistant of insulin action, the situation is called insulin resistance. Insulin resistance results to making the pancreas produce more insulin than normal. The latter is now called hyperinsulinemia. To illustrate, a normal person needs 1 unit of insulin to push a 10 mg of glucose into the cell, but in a person with hyperinsulinemia, he needs 10 units of insulin to push 1 10 mg of glucose into the cell because the glucose does not listen to the cell, it requires more insulin for it to listen.

Hyperinsulinemia that can be a result to insulin resistance can likewise cause many problems – high triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol (both can increase the risk of stroke and heart attack, high plasminogen activator inhibitor activity (can cause the risk of clotting), high uric acid or gout and polycystic ovary syndrome (a disorder in the endocrine that cause infertility, obesity, high leptin levels, etc.). Fat cells secrete leptin – a hormone that regulates weight and controls energy expenditure and intake of food. If it is high, obesity can occur.

Insulin resistance is a big deal because abnormality in the adrenal androgen and ovarian secrtion can happen because of it. Insulin resistance can result to stroke, heart attack, morbid obesity, type 2 diabetes, endocrine disorders in women, hypertension and clotting problems.

Hyperinsulinemia and diabetes

Patients with type 2 diabetes have hyperinsulinemia. Even before having diabetes, there some conditions involving metabolic stress such as pregnancy that the pancreas beta cells are compelled to release more insulin than usual to overcome pregnancy insulin resistance but fail to do so. Diabetes during pregnancy is called gestational diabetes and has the possibility to develop into diabetes even after giving birth. By ages 50-60 years, some of the beta cells might be burned out and while the insulin levels are normal, they cannot fight against insulin resistance anymore, resulting to diabetes.