How does insulin resistance happen within the body?

The common belief is that insulin resistance only occurs due to consuming high amounts of sugar. And that can definitely be a contributing factor, as we as a society have increased our consumption of sugar over the years. When we consume high amounts of sugar then we are asking a lot of our bodies and we need to make more insulin and over time those insulin receptors are not as sensitive as they should be.

There’s definitely other factors that can contribute to insulin resistance:

These other factors can be any of the stressors on the body. These stressors can be food sensitivities, immune challenges, heavy metals, environmental toxins, structural imbalances, and emotional stresses. What happens with any of these stressors is they activate a part of our system called the stress response system called the HPA axis, the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis. When the HPA axis is activated it will release cortisol from the adrenals, which are your stress hormones. This alerts the body that there is a stress going on. Most people only associate stress as mental-emotional stress but if we eat a food that our body cannot properly metabolize, like an inflammatory food like gluten, cow’s dairy or sugar, then this is a stress on the body and activates an adrenal response. Fighting an infection activates an adrenal response. If we have a toxic load coming into the body, either an environmental toxin or heavy metals, this will also activate an adrenal response. On a physical level if we are structurally out of balance this will activate a stress response. With a stress response, we will release more insulin and if we have high amounts of insulin, then the insulin receptors may not work as effectively as they are designed to work.

Another contributing factor to insulin resistance can be environmental toxins coming into the body can actually damage or injure the insulin receptors on those cell membranes. This can make it challenging for the cells to effectively bring glucose or sugar into the cells to make energy.

These are some of the many causative factors that can contribute to insulin resistance.