What we'll talk about
Insulin is an anabolic hormone for both muscle and fat tissue. Although it fulfills an irreplaceable role in building muscle mass, it can also make you decent fatty. And that’s why, as with other hormones, we talk about optimization rather than increasing or decreasing it. High insulin sensitivity is associated with a low probability of developing all civilizational diseases, from cardiovascular to neurodegenerative, to diabetes and cancer. The lower your insulin sensitivity, the more calories from food you eat will be stored in fat tissue, and the more scary food will be for you.
Insulin resistance is involved to a greater or lesser extent in all civilizational diseases, including cancer. Insulin sensitivity is necessary so that the body does not tend to store food in the form of new adipose tissue and also to increase muscle anabolism (proteosynthesis). Insulin sensitivity makes it difficult for nutrients to enter the muscle cells, due to which they are then stored in fat cells. Regardless of how many calories you consume, with low insulin sensitivity, some of them always stay in fat tissue. Low insulin sensitivity is therefore a phenomenon occurring across the board.
I’m not going to beat around the bush and tell you straight up that insulin is the most anabolic hormone in the human body. I know what you’re saying right now: Anabolic!? That’s all I care about, the end, we’ll close the book and try to increase him as much as possible. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
But first, let’s talk about insulin in general.
What's Insulin?
Insulin is a hormonal messenger that transports glucose, fatty acids, and amino acids from the blood (where they reach from the digestive system or the liver) to the cells. Those can be muscle cells, damaged by training, where supplied sugars restore energy reserves and amino acids start muscle catabolism. The same thing applies to fat cells, where fatty acids and sugars are stored in the form of triglycerides in the form of new adipose tissue.
Insulin is an anabolic hormone for both muscle and fat tissue.
And in this insulin is a paradoxical hormone. Although it fulfills an irreplaceable role in building muscle mass (which is why its synthetic version is also used in bodybuilding), it can also make you decent fatty. Insulin can be a good servant, but a bad master. And that’s why, as with other hormones, we talk about optimization rather than increasing or decreasing it.
Understanding Insulin Sensitivity
Insulin Sensitivity and Its Importance
Insulin itself is neutral. Its amount in the blood can be large or small, but unlike thyroid hormones, this does not say anything about its character. What matters to us is the sensitivity of our cells to it: The more sensitive your cells are to insulin (the greater your insulin sensitivity), the better they will respond to it, the less your body will have to make, and the more effective insulin will be in bringing the necessary nutrients in the form of amino acids and glucose in the cells. Insulin sensitivity therefore goes hand in hand with the fact that, thanks to insulin (which withdraws them from the blood), nutrients reach the cells where they are needed: liver, muscle, and brain.
Simply put: The higher your insulin sensitivity, the more you can eat without starting to store body fat (this is also related to the total amount of muscle mass) and vice versa. Anyone with very poor insulin sensitivity just needs to walk past a bakery, smell the croissants, and immediately gain 1 kilo.
At the same time, high insulin sensitivity is associated with a low probability of developing all civilizational diseases, from cardiovascular to neurodegenerative, to diabetes and cancer (yes, I consider them all civilizational, caused primarily by humans and not genetics).
To keep high insulin sensitivity, it is necessary for the insulin to be something special and unique to the target cells, so that they do not constantly come into contact with it. In such a case, their receptors then react to it with great surprise and open the GLUT-4 gates, through which they let glucose from the blood into themselves (to the sound of loud cheers and fireworks). However, if too many insulin molecules knock on their door too often, their receptors will soon stop being interested in insulin, which will reduce their insulin sensitivity – such cells will then respond to insulin less and less which also makes fewer nutrients reach the cells.
These nutrients are then absorbed from the blood in the liver, where the excess amino acids must be converted into glucose (gluconeogenesis) or metabolized into ammonia and excreted from the body (which burdens the liver and kidneys and increases the toxic load). The excess glucose is then converted into triglycerides and stored in adipose tissue (lipogenesis). Fat cells have more insulin receptors and also the ability to create far greater energy reserves, so they like to reach for excess glucose that no longer reaches the muscle cells, brain, and liver and store it in adipose tissue.
The lower your insulin sensitivity, the more calories from the food you eat will be stored in fat tissue, and the more scary food will be for you, regardless of how healthy or unhealthy you eat.
Impact of Insulin Sensitivity on Health
Increased adipose tissue storage is only one dark side of the coin of low insulin sensitivity. The second is the simple fact that thanks to this, the tissues (i.e., muscles) will stop receiving the necessary amount of nutrients for their regeneration, or proper function. As sensitivity decreases, the tap for nutrients gets tighter and tighter until it eventually closes completely, which is what we call insulin resistance. And this is subsequently associated with the development of obesity, extremely increased toxicity and inflammation of the organism and a general disruption of the hormonal balance.
In its final form, diabetes mellitus II. occurs when the pancreas stops producing insulin, or III. the type where the brain is insensitive to insulin, which subsequently leads to the formation of amyloid plaque and Alzheimer’s dementia. Apart from this, however, insulin resistance is involved to athe greater or lesser extent of all civilizational diseases, including cancer.
From the point of view of a full and long life, it is in the interest of all of us to maximize our insulin sensitivity and then maintain it as long as possible.
In terms of effective procedures for body transformation, achieving high insulin sensitivity is necessary so that the body does not tend to store the consumed food in the form of new adipose tissue and also to increase muscle anabolism (proteosynthesis).
Causes of Insulin Dysregulation
The Need for Insulin Optimization
After reading the previous text, you should understand the role and necessity of insulin for health and body transformation, as well as understand the concepts of insulin sensitivity and insulin resistance.
However, you may still be wondering why insulin optimization should be of interest to you if you are not diabetic, obese, or suffering from any of the above diseases. After all, if you have been eating according to general recommendations, the basics of healthy eating or fitness menus for some time, you should have good insulin sensitivity, or not?
Unfortunately, the opposite is true. No matter what form of eating people follow and how healthy they think they are eating, we are increasingly faced with resistance to body transformation due to low insulin sensitivity in our society.
Low insulin sensitivity, as mentioned above, makes it difficult for nutrients to enter the muscle cells, due to which they are then stored in fat cells to a greater extent. Regardless of how many calories you consume, with low insulin sensitivity, some of them will always be stored in fat tissue.
At the same time, you can look at the level of your insulin sensitivity fairly accurately according to your body fat percentage. Simply put: If you are female and over 15% body fat or male and over 8% body fat, insulin is the hormone of choice, which you need to optimize to progress further in your character transformation efforts.
Low Insulin Sensitivity in Society
As you will surely recognize, few people have such a low body fat percentage in normal life (just to clarify, women always have a higher body fat percentage than men due to their genetic predominance, but both percentage levels correspond to the same level of body transformation). Low insulin sensitivity is therefore a phenomenon occurring across the board in our society: From the exercising population, where it manifests as problems with burning fat (and in worse cases, as a complete resistance to body transformation), through the decreasing quality of health in the general population, to the rapid increase in obesity, diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular diseases and cancer in recent years (where this trend, unless something changes, will continue to grow).
What is the cause of low insulin sensitivity in the majority of the population? Is it the jealousy of fate or perhaps a curse by the ancient deities?
If you’d prefer a longer answer, it would be: Too many carbs (eaten at the wrong part of the day).
Carbohydrates and Low Insulin Sensitivity
Carbohydrates, of all three basic types of macronutrients, cause the greatest insulin production. And it is carbohydrates that most people consume more than is healthy.
As a result, their pancreas produces an excessive amount of insulin, which dulls the cells and reduces their insulin sensitivity, which then leads to further insulin production and the whole process cycles. The result is the storage of nutrients in the form of new adipose tissue, increasing inflammation of the organism, retention of extracellular fluid and disruption of the hormonal balance, manifesting outwardly as weight gain or other symptoms of reduced health, which can lead to the onset of disease.