Every single cell in your body, including your brain, needs energy to function. The source of this energy is mostly obtained from the food we eat. Three different types of macronutrients provide the molecules our cells turn into energy: carbohydrates, proteins and fats.
Each of these three groups is represented by a range of different subtypes that you are probably already familiar with. Carbohydrates include simple and complex ones, such as glucose, fructose and starches. Proteins are made up of 20 different amino acids, 9 of which are considered essential because our bodies can’t synthesize enough of them. Fats also include a range of subtypes from saturated and unsaturated ones to cholesterol.
Body wisdom
Our bodies are very smart and have developed ways to make use of these different energy sources over the course of our evolution. What’s changed in recent decades is that we’ve thrown off the balance between these types of macronutrients and are consuming lots more simple carbs, especially in the form of sugars added to processed foods.
Unfortunately, our bodies don’t know what to do with all this extra sugar, and so it overwhelms our metabolic regulation and creates havoc with our health. Simple sugars are an immediately available source of energy once they enter the blood stream, but they need to move into cells very quickly to become available, and also to keep blood glucose levels steady.
How does insulin work
This is where insulin comes in. It is the hormone released by islets of Langerhans in the pancreas that ushers glucose molecules through the membrane into the cell. It’s a more complicated process than you might imagine because it requires considerable flexibility to allow just the right amounts to enter cells and the right amounts to stay in the blood. Cells can only use so much glucose at any given time, so the extra stuff needs to be stored for later use. The liver and muscle can hold some but most will eventually be put away in fat cells.
Problems develop once your blood glucose levels rise, or when they fluctuate wildly. But the real issue affecting your long-term health is when cells don’t want to listen to your insulin any longer. This is called insulin resistance.
When things don’t go as intended
Insulin resistance is one of the most central mechanisms, if not THE most important one, impacting the health of all your cells and organ systems. It paves the way for metabolic syndrome, the precursor to diabetes (T2DM), and contributes to almost every other chronic disease, including cardiovascular disease, liver disease, kidney disease, cancer and cognitive decline. Excess glucose and insulin dysregulation are a major driver of ongoing system-wide inflammation.
Why women need to pay attention
Women going through the menopause transition will have a higher risk of developing insulin resistance and any connected chronic health conditions because the profound changes in hormone production, especially the decline in estradiol, affect your metabolism on several fronts. This development contributes to gaining weight around your organs, called visceral fat.
There are other factors involved, too, like genetics and toxin exposure, but the main source of the problem is what we eat and drink, and when. I think that this is actually good news. We can’t change our genes (yet) and have only limited control over the toxins in our environment, but we can make smarter choices about how we nourish ourselves.
Cutting to the chase
Implementing an appropriate nutrition strategy (and sticking to it for life) is your best chance at nipping insulin resistance in the bud and restoring metabolic health so that you can sharply reduce your risk of all these chronic conditions linked to insulin resistance.
This may seem like a daunting task but it’s actually not as hard as you think. It’s what I focus on when working with my patients. Together, we create an approach to nutrition and nourishment that emphasizes whole foods over processed foods, and helps you get most important nutrients from your diet so that you can balance your insulin, lose weight and improve your long-term health and wellbeing. Select botanicals and nutritional supplements may round out the picture.
Lab testing
Your physician can assess the state of your health and monitor your progress with certain laboratory tests, including markers for glucose metabolism, your lipid panel, liver function, and inflammation using hsCRP and other tests. This feedback can be very helpful. While I always like to keep an eye on your labs, I place more emphasis on your health history, your food diary, your functioning, and even your own intuition of where you might need to create change. Because the specific steps I may recommend to you are health-promoting, and often just common sense, I am quite comfortable to get you started before you’ve spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars on conventional and functional lab testing.
Tackling lifestyle choices that put your metabolic health at risk is as important as keeping your finances or love life in order. The little leaks caused by inattention and overindulgence can cost you dearly over time, but you can decide to start making changes now, and you don’t have to do it all alone.
© 2025 Christiane Siebert
