Gabe Mirkin, M.D.
If you store more fat in your belly than in your hips, your
cells are likely to be resistant to insulin which puts you at high risk
for high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attacks, strokes and
premature death. In one recent study, researchers measured
insulin resistance and compared it to several risk factors for
diabetes in men and women: 1) heart-lung fitness; 2) whole-body
fatness and 3) abdominal obesity (Diabetes Care, March 2006).
They showed that lack of physical fitness and overweight are very
significant predictors of diabetes in men and women and that the
single most important measure of insulin resistance is storing fat
in the belly rather than the hips.
Storing fat in your belly causes you to store excess fat in
your liver, which interferes with its function of removing insulin
from your bloodstream after it has done its job of driving sugar into
cells. When your blood sugar rises after meals, your pancreas is
supposed to release enough insulin to keep it from rising too high.
If your cells cannot respond to insulin adequately, you are called
insulin resistant, your blood sugar rises too high and your
pancreas releases huge amounts of insulin. When your blood
sugar rises too high, sugar sticks to cells. Once there, the sugar
cannot get off the cells and is eventually converted to a poison
called sorbitol that destroys the cells to damage nerves, arteries
and other tissues throughout your body. Excess insulin acts on
your brain to make you eat more and on your arteries to cause
heart attacks. More
June 15, 2006