The Biggest Culprit in Insulin Resistance

Consuming a lot of sugar is certainly not good for you, but when it comes to blood sugar control and insulin resistance, it’s actually not the biggest problem.

Sugar is essentially a form of fuel for the body, and the body is designed to handle fuel, including sugar. We might not like how the body handles this fuel (especially when it gets deposited as fat), but it does handle it – IF we are suitably active to use the fuel.

Current research is showing a clear pattern that being sedentary is one of the worst lifestyle factors there is, and this is true of blood sugar control and insulin sensitivity in particular.

A common recommendation for a healthy level of physical activity is approximately 150 minutes per week. Yet many people get at least this much time, and often more, in the gym or otherwise exercising, and still have significant problems with their metabolic health. A common problem is that even ardent gym-goers often spend their time outside the gym being very physically inactive – sitting at their desks at work, sitting on the couch watching television at home, etc.. For every hour they spend working out, many people spend several hours barely moving.

It is becoming more and more clear that frequency of activity is more important than the total time spent being active.

One recent study showed that a few minutes of activity had increasingly positive results with greater frequency – for instance walking around for a few minutes had better and better effects on blood glucose control and insulin sensitivity at frequencies increasing from once an hour to every 15 minutes. Granted, with increased frequency, the total activity time increased as well, but with more frequent activity, the body simply used glucose more efficiently.

Light exercise, such as casual walking works, but more intense exercise like body weight squats has an even greater effect. The more the muscles are engaged, the more they take up glucose – without needing insulin to do it. This muscle activity induced glucose uptake gives the pancreas a break and reduces the amount of insulin it needs to produce to manage blood sugar.

The downside to the body’s dependence on activity for good metabolic health is that even very fit people will lose the insulin sensitivity benefits of their conditioning if they take a prolonged break from it. One study showed that after 10 days of relative inactivity in those who otherwise exercised regularly, insulin levels doubled! The good news is, if you are exercising regularly, things do return to normal quite quickly – insulin levels were restored after just a single workout following the period of inactivity!

So, while regular workouts are definitely important for metabolic health, as well as for building muscle and cardiovascular endurance, smaller sessions of activity that don’t require any special equipment or even significant chunks of time are extremely important and beneficial for blood sugar control and insulin sensitivity. In fact, frequent short bursts of light to moderate activity might actually be more important in the long run – at least for metabolic health – than longer workouts.

Until next time…

George F. Best, D.C.