with Dr Benjamin Bikman

Insulin's ability to control blood sugar becomes compromised due to what happens at muscle cells, liver cells and fat cells. Those cells become insulin resistant and now the body has a much harder time controlling blood sugar, and so blood sugar starts to climb up.

But at other cells of the body, insulin continues to work perfectly fine and that becomes a problem when we flip the coin over. Because when the body starts to become insulin resistant, insulin levels have been getting higher and higher.

Now that is actually both cause and consequence and I'll come back to that in just a moment. But as insulin levels continue to climb, this is a condition called hyperinsulinemia.