Is my sugar bad?

Such is the sweetness of life.

Everyone "knows" sugar is bad for us. Or is it? It's true our bodies run on glucose, and even when people drastically cut sugar and carbohydrates, the body will force-produce sugar from other resources. This is because glucose is an essential fuel for certain cells and organs. So, why the widespread fear of sugar?

The answer, thanks in large part to public health awareness and the internet, often comes back to diabetes. The technical term, insulin resistance, is also widely known. But here's the kicker: while everyone claims to understand insulin resistance, few truly grasp what insulin actually does. We've heard insulin controls blood sugar, so it seems logical that in insulin resistance, blood sugar is out of control. However, that's only a tiny piece of the puzzle.

When someone expresses concern about insulin resistance to their doctor, or shows major signs of metabolic syndrome, they're often told their blood sugar is normal, so they don't have diabetes or insulin resistance. A few years later, they develop full-blown diabetes and are advised to take medication and avoid carbohydrates to control their sugar. This approach, which revolves solely around sugar, largely ignores insulin's far more significant roles in the body. While it might control blood sugar, this method can worsen insulin resistance, ultimately plummeting a person's quality of life and overall health.

This simplified approach to complex health issues is a pattern we see repeatedly. We reduce intricate systems to basic equations. While this might be acceptable if it improved our health outcomes, chronic diseases are on the rise – suggesting we're failing to get better in almost every aspect of health.

Let's get back to insulin. It has at least nine known functions in the human body (if we discount its numerous effects on the brain). The first happens immediately after it's released from the pancreas. The second occurs in the liver, the third in fat cells, and so on. Its final function is to maintain our electrolyte balance – without which, we'd quickly become stiff and lifeless.

Now, guess where blood sugar control fits into this cascade? It's situated right before insulin's very last function. This perspective helps us understand that monitoring glucose levels as a proxy for insulin function is only one step short of diagnosing diabetes only after a person has died (as one can’t survive without the right electrolyte balance).

Although it's possible to detect insulin resistance when its concentration begins to rise for its second effect in the liver, the easiest way to spot this "dis-ease" is at the level of your fat cells. This can often be observed using a routine lipid profile that most people have already had done. Of course, this is still nuanced, and the results aren't always straightforward – as is often the case with complex systems like our bodies.

However, if your fasting triglycerides aren't less than half of your HDL, your healthcare practitioner may want to investigate further to ensure you aren't already insulin resistant – a potential gateway to chronic diseases. The bright side? By focusing on becoming more insulin-sensitive, we're likely to achieve significant improvements in our health. This crucial shift won't happen, though, until we're ready to face the real enemy – insulin resistance – not just its sidekick, blood glucose levels.