Could this important metabolic hormone be silently impacting your health during menopause?
Menopause brings a cascade of hormonal changes that affect many aspects of health, including insulin sensitivity and resistance. Understanding these concepts is crucial for maintaining well-being during this life stage.
What is Insulin Sensitivity and Resistance?
Insulin Sensitivity refers to how effectively your body's cells respond to insulin, a hormone that helps regulate blood sugar levels. High insulin sensitivity means your cells use glucose efficiently, maintaining stable blood sugar levels.
Insulin Resistance occurs when your cells don't respond properly to insulin. As a result, the pancreas produces more insulin to compensate, leading to higher blood sugar levels and eventually conditions like prediabetes or type 2 diabetes.
Causes of Insulin Resistance
Several factors are linked to insulin resistance. If you’ve been following my blogs for a while, these are going to sound familiar…
Obesity: Excess body weight, especially around the abdomen, is strongly linked to insulin resistance.
Sedentary Lifestyle: Lack of physical activity can lead to reduced insulin sensitivity.
Genetics: Family history of diabetes can increase the risk.
Chronic Stress: Elevated cortisol levels from stress can impair insulin sensitivity.
Poor Diet: High sugar and refined carbohydrate intake, along with unhealthy fats, can promote insulin resistance.
Sleep Issues: Poor quality or insufficient sleep can negatively impact insulin sensitivity.
Sodas and High Fructose Corn Syrup: High sugar content in sodas and processed foods with high fructose corn syrup can lead to insulin resistance.
Alcohol: Excessive alcohol consumption can impair insulin sensitivity.
So how do you know if you’ve developed insulin resistance?
A woman squeezes her trunk showing her belly fat.
Many people with insulin resistance may not show symptoms until it progresses to higher blood sugar levels. Some signs to watch for include:
Increased waist circumference
High blood pressure
High blood sugar levels
Abnormal cholesterol levels (low HDL, high triglycerides)
Fatigue
Dark patches of skin (acanthosis nigricans)
Increased thirst and hunger
Frequent urination
Blurred vision
Insulin Resistance and Menopause
During perimenopause and menopause, hormonal changes significantly impact insulin sensitivity. The decline in estrogen levels is particularly influential:
Fat Storage: Lower estrogen levels can lead to increased abdominal fat, a key factor in insulin resistance.
Blood Sugar Fluctuations: Hormonal changes can cause more significant fluctuations in blood sugar levels.
Metabolic Changes: Menopause is often associated with metabolic syndrome, which includes increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol levels.
Why should you care about insulin resistance?
Insulin resistance is concerning because it can lead to serious health conditions like type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease if left untreated. During menopause, monitoring and managing insulin sensitivity becomes even more critical due to the added hormonal changes and health risks. But its important at any stage of life so even if you don’t think you’re perimenopausal and the above signs and symptoms resonate with you, then its time to pay attention and make some healthy changes.
A midlife woman prepares herself to do an upper body resistance exercise.
Managing Insulin Sensitivity and Resistance
Here are some practical steps to improve insulin sensitivity and manage resistance:
Healthy Diet: Focus on a balanced diet rich in whole foods, fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and healthy fats. Stop drinking soda, syrups in your coffee, and highly processed foods that are loaded with sugar, salt, unhealthy fats and nasty non-foods.
Regular Exercise: Incorporate both aerobic and resistance training exercises to improve insulin sensitivity. Something as simple as a 15 minute walk after a meal can make a big difference to insulin sensitivity and blood glucose regulation.
Weight Management: Maintain a healthy weight to reduce abdominal fat. If you are struggling with this, and many of my clients are, then you probably need to seek the support of a practitioner that’s trained in metabolic health. Over exercising and restricting calories are not the answer and while they may have worked for you in your 20’s or 30’s, you need a different approach in your 40’s and 50’s.
Quit Smoking: Smoking can exacerbate insulin resistance, among other things. Vaping is not any better. Stop putting that shitstorm of addictive chemicals into your body. End of story. (PS – I’m an ex-smoker so I know it’s easier said than done – but we have ways to support that addiction using nutritional supplementation – just saying…)
Moderate Alcohol Intake: Limit alcohol consumption to moderate levels. Now I can go on forever about what might be considered “moderate” but if you give alcohol a rest for as little as a week (but try 3 weeks) you will feel the difference and know that in reality, your body does not do well with any amount of alcohol and you’ll feel a lot better without it.
Manage Stress: You may not be able to avoid stress or stressful situations, but you can be more resilient to it with regular stress-reducing activities like yoga, meditation, or deep breathing exercises.
Get Adequate Sleep: Aim for 7-9 hours of quality sleep per night. See my article on Menopausal Sleep Solutions for more on that subject.
Monitor Health: When was the last time you went to the doctor for a full check-up? Having a regular check-up (yearly or more frequently if you have chronic health conditions) to monitor things like blood sugar, cholesterol, liver health, thyroid and blood pressure levels goes a long way toward getting a better understanding of your health
Do one thing today to get started. Book in with your primary health care provider for a health check-up. Taking proactive steps to manage insulin sensitivity and resistance before and during perimenopause/menopause can significantly improve your overall health and reduce the risk of severe complications in the future.