Every year it seems that more and more people are being diagnosed with diabetes. Some of these cases could, no doubt, be avoided if people would have their insulin resistance levels checked yearly. Insulin resistance happens when the body diminishes its receptiveness to insulin, thus diminishing insulin's healthful effects. There are a number of causes and risk factors for this disease. One of them is, of course, genes. If anybody in your family has it, you are at higher risk. In addition, there are certain drugs that are positive risk factors. As a matter of fact, over the years, there have been a wide variety of factors that seem to increase the odds of a person developing insulin resistance. Some of the most common ones are obesity, pregnancy, stress, infection, and steroid.
Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a medical diagnosis in which the body has an elevated resistance to insulin. As a result, the body is unable to properly make use of the insulin in the body. And, even in the cases where the beta cells are actually producing insulin, the body still cannot use it.
In a normal body, insulin will bind to receptors in the body's cells. This, in turn, induces them to use up blood glucose for energy. But, where insulin resistance is occurring, the cells either do not respond at all to insulin or they respond poorly. As a result, this causes the pancreas to produce more insulin to make the body respond.
As this process loop continues inside your body, it continues to produce ever more insulin in an attempt to resolve the problem. Unfortunately, as time passes, and if the person receives no treatment, gradually the insulin resistance will increase. Eventually the time will arrive when the pancreas simply stops producing insulin. It's at this point when your blood glucose levels can increase dramatically.
The degree of this type of insulin resistance can be diagnosed through measuring fasting insulin levels. There are also , glucose tolerance tests and the modified insulin suppression test which can help gauge the degree of the problem.
The best treatments for treating insulin resistance involves constant exercise and watching your diet. Particularly, eating more healthy foods and laying off of the junk foods that are so prevalent in the market place.
If the problem has escalated, however, dietary changes and exercise may not be enough. In this case your doctor will try a series of medications to see which ones your body will best respond to.
There are many medications used to treat insulin problems such as this. One such drug is metformin (Glucophage) which prevents the release of glucose from the liver into the blood and increases cellular sensitivity to insulin so that they remove more insulin from the blood and decrease blood sugar. Metformin has been known to halt the progress of diabetes by 31%.
Acarbose is another drug used to control the effects of insulin resistance; it slows down intestinal absorption of sugars, decreasing the need of the pancreas to produce insulin, especially after meals. Acarbose is reported to halt the progress of diabetes by 35%.
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