It is common for patients with a weight problem to blame their hormones. At the Medical Nutritional Institute we totally agree with them. The only problem is that although many have inherited a combination of hormonal tendencies, leading to excessive storage of fat or the overindulgence of food, the knowledge of most of these abnormalities offers little practical value. Treating the endocrine system is in some ways like trying to fix a computer with a crowbar.

Most people believe that thyroid hormone is the main driver of human metabolism. This is a scientific fallacy.  Ask any medical student to show you their physiology textbook – the hormone insulin is by far the most metabolically active substance in the body, dominating your metabolism. Most people with a weight problem have a perfectly normal functioning thyroid gland, producing more than sufficient hormones for their body. If you’ve had your thyroid function assessed in the past and it was found to be normal, stop worrying about it. Insulin, however, is the hormone you should start worrying about because if you don't, there is a good chance you will never successfully control your weight.

The role of insulin
Each cell in the human body needs a continuous supply of glucose to satisfy its energy requirements. Glucose, however, cannot penetrate the outer membrane of a cell without the assistance of insulin, which plays the role of gatekeeper, opening a “door” so that glucose can gain access by penetrating the membrane.

Besides this important duty, insulin also has some other functions which are disastrous to anyone with a tendency to gain weight. Instead of preserving life, as in the days of caveman, these functions reduce the life expectancy of modern man and increase one’s chances of developing degenerative diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer. But it didn't start out like that…

In the beginning when food was scarce, insulin protected the caveman from starvation during periods of famine by stockpiling energy resources during the good times. Insulin did this by stimulating the caveman's body to convert glucose into fat and then helping to store this fat inside his fat cells. In addition, insulin also prevented the caveman from wasting his valuable store of winter fat by actively blocking the release of fat from his fat cells, using a different biochemical mechanism.

Unlike the caveman of the past, modern man does not have to survive long periods of famine and uses significantly less energy to find food and keep warm. We also eat foods with a much higher energy content.  For genetic survival purposes, however, insulin still faithfully does the same job, converting all your excess energy into fat and squirreling it away into your fat cells. Once safely tucked away, insulin guards your fat by blocking its release from these cells.

The bottom line is that insulin not only causes you to gain weight, but also makes it more difficult for you to lose weight.

How insulin resistance develops
Originally, fat cells were thought to have two functions, namely storing energy and keeping the body warm by insulating it. Recently, scientists have discovered that when filled with fat, fat cells also assume a hormonal function by releasing various chemical substances. For reasons not quite understood, these substances interfere with insulin's gate-keeping role relating to glucose and somehow render insulin less effective. The medical term for this condition is insulin resistance. To get the same task done, the body compensates by producing more insulin and so insulin levels rise above the norm.

Insulin resistance therefore makes you even more prone to gaining weight than in the past. In addition, it also makes it even more difficult for you to lose weight. Once this condition sets in, a vicious cycle begins and your metabolism effectively slows down.


Are you perhaps finding that you are battling more now than before to lose weight?
Do the things that used to work for you in the past, no longer diminish your body fat?

Here is what others have to say about insulin resistance:

“For years I battled with my weight, trying various diets and products but never losing an ounce. One day my doctor checked my fasting insulin level and found it elevated. No wonder I was fighting a losing battle. By treating the condition, the weight has begun to drop off me at a constant rate and I am feeling years younger.”
H vd M - Alberton

“By treating my insulin resistance properly I managed to lose 39 kilo's and could reduce my diabetic medication.”
GN - Sandton

“I wasted so much time in the past. Insulin resistance helped make me fat and then kept me fat. For the first time I am having satisfactory weight loss results.”
FB – Douglasdale

I battle with my weight. Could I perhaps be suffering from insulin resistance?
Yes. There is a good possibility that you are. The good news is that you don't need a blood test to find this out. Just check your waist circumference. Males more than 102cm and females more than 88cm will have a 90% chance of having insulin resistance according to American guidelines. European guidelines are even more stringent, with 93cm for males and 79cm for females being the cut off.

A logical question you may ask is: “Why doctors don't solve the problem by shutting your insulin production off?”  This sounds like an excellent idea in theory, especially if you hear that in the absence of insulin all aspects of fat break down and its use in providing energy are significantly increased. This occurs normally between meals when insulin secretion is minimal, but it becomes extreme in type 1 diabetes when the pancreas fails and stops producing insulin. When this happens, fat stores are broken down so efficiently that rapid weight loss takes place. (Type 2 diabetes is very different)

Besides causing you to lose large amounts of weight, however, type I diabetes also makes your blood sugar and cholesterol levels soar, causing many other life threatening medical problems that will significantly decrease your life expectancy if not treated correctly.

So, if 'too much' and 'too little' insulin are both bad for your body, it is clear that something 'in-between' becomes crucial if you want to maintain your weight as well as your health.  If you want to lose weight, however, aim to get your insulin levels as low as possible.

Is there any medical evidence that proves that insulin makes you gain weight?
Doctors deal with the evidence on a daily basis. Some type 2 diabetics cannot successfully be managed with oral medication alone and will eventually require regular insulin injections. A large study (UKPDS) showed that insulin therapy causes an average weight gain of 6.5 kilograms. Many oral type 2 diabetic medication also makes you gain weight because of a similar biochemical principle.

A visual example of insulin’s tendency to store fat can be seen at the site of the injection. If insulin is repeatedly injected into the same area, a localised lump forms under the skin.  These bulges are engorged fat cells that are refusing to release their content because insulin inhibits the release of fatty acids.

What can I do to protect myself from insulin’s obesity promoting tendency?
Many people gain weight because they generally eat too much. Others gain weight not because of too much food, but because of their slow metabolic rates. To make matters worse, most people who become overweight eventually develop insulin resistance. Not only does it make them store fat more efficiently, but also it makes it more difficult for them to burn fat, usually explaining why so many people find that their metabolic rate slows down with time.  
During the research and development phase of our weight loss programme, clients with slow metabolic rates posed a far greater challenge for us than those who consumed too much energy. We found that many of these individuals were metabolically so efficient that they could only lose weight if they followed a strategy focused on alleviating insulin resistance, the philosophy upon which our programme is based. Our research showed that this approach consistently delivered better weight-loss results.

The following options are available to you:

Step 1 – Dietary modification
Ever wondered how the Atkins and GI diets work? Besides energy restriction, both work because of the effect that food has on blood sugar levels and the subsequent release of insulin. There are many different meal-plans available, but basically, if you eat less, you also need less and produce less insulin.

Step 2 - Exercise
Exercise makes your own insulin more effective, meaning that you need less to get the same job done.  

Step 3 - Medication that lower insulin levels
There are products that either improve the effectiveness of insulin or mimic its effects regarding the transfer of glucose molecules across the cell membrane. By reducing insulin requirements, blood insulin levels naturally diminish. Many oral diabetic agents belong to this category, but some of these have the unfortunate side-effect of actually increasing your weight which is rather counterproductive if you are trying to reduce it. Although not actually registered for insulin resistance, metformin is the most commonly prescribed product. The thiazolidinediones also improve insulin resistance but makes you gain weight.

At the Institute we conducted our own study on the insulin lowering effects of an Eastern medicinal plant that has been used to treat diabetes for over a century. We found that not only could the agent help control diabetes, but also it initiated weight loss by lowering blood insulin levels, a unique and added advantage to anyone with a weight problem. Further studies over seven years led to the development of AntaGolin™, our own patented insulin resistance formulation.  

[Read more about AntaGolin™]