Insulin Resistance - Read if you have questions!!!
From: Belle (anonymous@obgyn.net)
Fri, 7 Jul 2000 13:45:44 -0500 (CDT)
Monica posted this from her uncle and it is excellent. I have been
meaning to write something like this I simply have not had the time. I
hope that this will be referred to and that people who are new will see
this and understand more about the problems of PCOS.
The only thing that I would like to add is that you do not have to have
excess weight to have insulin resistance. Both of my children are
considered under weight (25 - 50 percentile since age 2) but average
height and are both IR. The main difference here is probably that I had
my children tested earlier than "normal" people would so in my children,
the IR showed up earlier than most people would have even known about
it. There have been other examples of thin women who have tested IR as
well. I think that the more we get early testing, the more IR will show
up.
Thank you Monica for sharing! Here is her post:
At Fri, 7 Jul 2000, Monica wrote:
>
>Hi everyone,
>I wrote a letter to my family about PCOS (on our family onelist site via
>the internet). My cousin Julie wrote back about her PCOS. Then my
>Uncle Jim, who is a doctor, wrote the following. I thought it was very
>helpful and wanted to pass it on to you. I hope the length doesn't put
>you off! p.s. I also sent a copy to the PCOS Medication Forum.
>p.s.s The "medical facts" he referres to are ones I passed on from both
>PCOS Forums.
>
>Dear Monica, Julie, and everyone else,
>
>--
>Monica and Julie, I want to congratulate you on your excellent
>discussion
>of PCOS (POLYCYSTIC OVARY SYNDROME). Your medical facts are perfectly
>right. PCOS is gentically determined but not everyone has exactly the
>same genetic make-up so not everyone has exactly the same symptoms.
>Women your age are usually bothered by symptoms such as irregular
>periods, infertility, hair growth, etc. I see an older group of people
>who have diabetes, high blood pressure, high triglycerides, low HDL
>cholesterol, and heart disease.
>
>PCOS is just part of a larger syndrome called the Insulin Resistance
>Syndrome. People with this syndrome inherit a gene or genes that cause
>a
>resistance to the effect of insulin, which is mainly to keep the blood
>sugar in a normal range. The body responds to this by making more
>insulin. So long as the body can make enough insulin to overcome the
>resistance, the blood sugar will stay normal. Once the resistance gets
>so bad that the body can no longer make enough insulin to overcome the
>resistance, then the blood sugar stays high and you have diabetes. The
>problem is that these people always have too much insulin. The high
>insulin levels drive the body to make too many triglycerides. The high
>triglycerides cause a decrease in the HDL cholesterol (the good
>cholesterol). Also many people with the insulin resistance syndrome
>also
>develop high blood pressure. The diabetes, high blood pressure, and low
>HDL cholesterol lead to the development of arteriosclerosis (hardening
>of
>the arteries), which leads to heart attacks, strokes, gangrene,
>aneurysms, etc.
>
>Insulin resistance is inherited and probably runs in the
>family. However, the manifestations of the disease usually don't happen
>until you gain weight. Any excess fat on the body increases the
>resistance to insulin. Although it is more complicated than that, in a
>sense when blood circulates through fat, the insulin resistance gets
>worse, and when blood circulates through muscle, the insulin resistance
>is lowered. The best treatment for insulin resistance is to lose
>weight,
>or, more accurately, to lose fat and gain muscle. The main thing that
>makes that happen is exercise. Diet is also important. However, if you
>lose weight only by dieting, you lose muscle as well as fat and you
>don't
>really make a significant change in the proportion of fat to muscle on
>the body. When you lose weight by dieting and exercising, you lose only
>fat and you gain muscle and you actually correct the problem. Insofar
>as
>diet is concerned, calories are the main culprit. Any time you take in
>more calories than you burn up, everything gets worse. Probably some
>calories are worse than others. Anything that stimulates your body to
>make insulin can make things worse. Sugar is what stimulates the
>production of insulin. So it is advisable to avoid sugar, pop with
>sugar, candy, ice cream, pies, cakes, cookies, donuts, and anything that
>has sugar in it. For some people with severe insulin resistance they
>should also avoid bread, potatoes, rice, cereal, pasta, and other
>carbohydrates which are broken down in the body to form sugar. The goal
>is to acheive a normal % of body fat, which is 15-20% for men and 20-25%
>for women. That is very difficult to acheive without getting regular
>exercise.
>
>There are medicines that help to combat the insulin resistance. As
>Monica mentioned, Glucophage is perhaps the best one. Actos and Avandia
>also help. They are related to Rezulin, which Julie took before
>becoming
>pregnant with the twins. Rezulin has been taken off the market and is
>no
>longer available, but Actos and Avandia are probably just as good. There
>is some evidence that a group of medicines called ACE Inhibitors are
>also
>beneficial for people with insulin resistance.
>
>Again, Monica and Julie, you are to be commended on the excellent
>information you have given everyone on this important topic. If you
>have
>any questions about this, let me hear from you.
>Love,
>Jim
>
>________________________________________________________________________
>________________________________________________________________________
>________________________________________________________________________
>________________________________________________________________________
>
--
Hope this helps,
Belle
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