Health Matters

By Dr. Gabe Mirkin:

If you store more fat in your belly than in your hips, your cellsare likely to be resistant to insulin which puts you at high risk for high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attacks, strokesand premature death.In one study, researchers measured insulin resistance and compared it toseveral risk factors fordiabetes in men and women: 1) heart-lung fitness; 2) whole-bodyfatness and 3) abdominal obesity (Diabetes Care, March 2006).They showed that lack of physical fitness and overweight are verysignificant predictors of diabetes in men and women and that the singlemost important measure of insulin resistance is storing fat in the bellyrather 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 pancreasis supposed torelease enough insulin to keep it from rising too high. If your cellscannot respond to insulin adequately, you are called insulin resistant,your blood sugar rises too high and your pancreas releases huge amountsof insulin. When your blood sugar rises too high, sugar sticks to cells.Once there, the sugar cannot get off the cells and is eventuallyconverted to a poison called sorbitol that destroys the cells to damagenerves, arteries and other tissues throughout your body. Excess insulinacts on your brain to make you eat more and on your arteries to causeheart attacks.

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