Ben Bikman1: GET YOUR INSULIN LEVELS MEASURED...glucose measures alone detect diabetes very late!
presents episode 232
Dr Ben Bikman
MetabolixOrg podcast
July 2021 https://youtu.be/NppjRm39LPw
Type 2 diabetes is a disease of insulin resistance…
Here we have a cell with an insulin receptor
We have insulin receptors at every cell in body
Every cell responds to insulin differently…
-when insulin comes to the receptor
-there is a cellular action
Example: glucose at the muscle cell
-insulin will stimulate the uptake of glucose
~insulin allows glucose to come into the cell
“insulin does much more
than this throughout body”
Example: glucose at the muscle cell
-based on certain insults to the cell…
-cell may not respond to insulin as well as before
When insulin resistant:
-increase in glucose &
-increase in insulin, so:
-insulin is now pounding on the receptor:
~sometimes this restores cell insulin action
if insulin resistance is a coin…two sides:
-one side: compromised insulin signalling (cell’s response is weak)
-other side: insulin levels are higher than before
“Must appreciate BOTH sides to understand
insulin’s role in so many
serious, chronic diseases”
Here is an indivdual, becoming more & more diabetic…
-glucose levels are going up (clinical definition of diabetes)
-what is totally overlooked is: insulin!
-insulin starts low, goes high, in some: starts to taper off
Initial time period:
-prediabetes (insulin resistance)
-OFTEN undiagnosed because:
~glucose is normal!
~insulin is elevated (not measured!!)
“insulin is the early indicator
of insulin resistance &
prediabetes”
Next time period…
-now have progressed to type 2 diabetes
-both elevated
~glucose &
~insulin
“not enough insulin to keep
glucose in check…
but it is often multiple times
higher than normal”
“Our failure to measure insulin means:
-we fail to detect insulin resistance (prediabetes)
in it’s earlier stages!”