The Sweet Stalker Part 2

[Guest guest]

>

> But if you're overweight, as two out of three Americans now are, body

> fat--especially belly fat--interferes. Your immune system treats excess

> body fat as an interloper, surrounding it with a phalanx of

> disease-fighting cells that send chemical messengers into your

> bloodstream. Those messengers block insulin's ability to issue the

> " dinner's ready " message to your muscle and liver cells. The result: Your

> cells can't absorb blood sugar. Sugar levels in your bloodstream rise a

> little. Your pancreas takes notice and churns out more insulin--the

> biochemical equivalent of force-feeding sugar into resistant cells.

>

> " It works, " Einhorn says. " High insulin enables cells to take up the

> sugar from the bloodstream. It works so well that your sugar levels can

> stay normal, or only slightly elevated, for decades. "

>

> After many years, insulin-producing islet cells in your pancreas may burn

> out. The result: Insulin falls, blood sugar rises--and you've got a

> classic case of type 2 diabetes. Doctors know that diabetes is linked to

> a huge variety of health complications, including heart disease, stroke,

> and high blood pressure; screening for these conditions and treating them

> aggressively after a diabetes diagnosis is now standard. What they're

> just beginning to see: The force behind these complications isn't high

> blood sugar. It's decades of high insulin levels--something that, so far,

> can't be measured with a simple lab test.

>

> Even more frightening: Just one in four people with IRS will develop type

> 2 diabetes. The rest may never get a warning about the killer in their

> blood.

>

> Sit Down, Stress Out

> Body fat's not the only problem. Inactivity makes things worse. " Muscle

> contractions from physical activity can make cells absorb blood sugar

> regardless of insulin levels or insulin resistance, " says Caprio,

> MD, associate professor of endocrinology and pediatrics at Yale

> University School of Medicine. " If you don't get exercise, you're relying

> even more on insulin and insulin receptors to get sugar into cells. "

> Research from Duke University and Harvard suggests that lack of sleep and

> high anxiety exacerbate IRS, perhaps by upping levels of stress hormones.

>

> You and your doctor can spot IRS only by adding up risk factors such as

> overweight, over age 40, a big belly, low HDL cholesterol, high

> triglycerides, and elevated blood pressure. " The more risk factors you

> have, the more certain it is that you have IRS, " Einhorn says.

>

> Why Haven't I Heard of It?

>

> There's a dangerous silence around Insulin Resistance Syndrome (IRS): You

> can't see or feel it, and most doctors aren't mentioning it yet. Here's

> why.

>

> No test

> There's no simple blood test for IRS. (Expect one in 5 to 7 years.)

>

> No drug

> Pharmaceutical researchers are looking hard at several meds with " magic

> bullet " potential. The hope: One drug will someday head off many

> IRS-related diseases at once. But for now, there is no FDA-approved IRS

> med.

>

>