What Does A High Fasting Insulin Level Mean?
A high fasting insulin level is termed hyperinsulinemia (hyper=high, insulin, emia=blood). It means higher than normal insulin in the blood. To measure fasting blood insulin levels fasting for 12 hours before a blood sample is necessary.
The significance of hyperinsulinemia is explained by nephrologist Dr. Jason Fung in the following video.
What Is Insulin Resistance?
A lab finding of higher than normal insulin in the blood is suggestive of insulin resistance. But since there are other possible yet obscure causes of high insulin, a specific calculation is done to assess insulin resistance when insulin measures high. This calculation is called HOMA-IR (for Homeostatic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance).
The HOMA-IR Blood Code Calculation is done as follows. (Insulin uIU/mL (mU/L) X Glucose (mg/dL))/405 = HOMA-IR. The HOMA-IR value is interpreted as follows:
Healthy Range: 1.0 (0.5–1.4)
Less than 1.0 means you are insulin-sensitive which is optimal.
Above 1.9 indicates early insulin resistance.
Above 2.9 indicates significant insulin resistance.
Insulin resistance is how our body accomadates or adjusts to a diet containing lots of sugar and refined carbohydrates.
Each time we eat sweets and starches our blood sugar rises. The more that we eat sweets and starches the more our blood sugar rises. Each time our blood sugar rises insulin is required to push the sugar in the blood into our cells where it is needed. A diet containing lots of sugar and refined carbohydrates leads to higher insulin levels.
Over a period of years, higher insulin levels result in an adaptive response by our body’s cells. Our cells become less sensitive to insulin. As a result our pancreas begins secreting more insulin to get the same effect–pushing the sugar in the blood into cells. This becomes a viscious cycle with our cells becoming less and less sensitive to insulin and the pancreas secreting more and more insulin to overcome the cells resistance.
Having chronically high insulin levels (hyperinsulinemia) is unhealthy. Here are some of the conditions caused by hyperinsulinemia:
- Obesity
- Metabolic syndrome
- Higher triglyceride levels
- High uric acid
- Hardening of the arteries
- High blood pressure
The following short video by Dr. Christopher Gardner explains insulin resistance.
Reversing Insulin Resistance
Fortunately, insulin resistance is reversible. Numerous studies have shown that changing the balance of macronutrients (carbs, protein, fat) can break the viscious cycle of sugars and starches stimulating insulin release which in turn creates more insulin resistance.
Dr. Sarah Hallberg, DO describes the issues surrounding our SAD (standard American diet) diet, how it is the cause of our current epidemic of obesity and type II diabetes, and how to reverse it.
Getting Off Of Sugars And Starches Isn’t Easy Because…
…sugar is addictive. The following video narrated by Nicole Avena explains how sugar and refined carbohydrates become addictive.
As Dr. Hallberg explained in the second video above, it is possible to reverse insulin resistance by avoiding sugars and refined carbohydrates in the diet. Replacing foods that raise blood sugar with healthy fats that don’t elicit an insulin response gradually restores insulin sensitivity.
Specific nutrients and nutraceuticals have also been shown to help restore insulin sensitivity. Intermittent fasting also strongly improves insulin sensitivity. As insulin sensitivity is restored, blood insulin levels drop. When blood insulin levels drop, the conditions associated with hyperinsulinemia resolve (obesity, metabolic syndrome, high triglyceride levels, high uric acid and high blood pressure).
