Ep. 56 Understanding Insulin : How a Teen's Body Handles Sugar

In this episode I focus on the hormone insulin and its significant role in regulating blood sugar levels and weight. I explain how insulin resistance can develop due to high carbohydrate intake and excess weight gain, leading to potential diabetes. I also discuss the body's insulin response variations with different body shapes and I emphasize the importance of maintaining a healthy weight to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. Finally, I offer practical tips for teenagers to improve their insulin resistance through lifestyle changes, noting that these changes can help prevent diabetes and ensure a healthier pancreas.

00:00 Introduction to Insulin and Its Importance

02:40 Understanding Insulin Resistance

04:40 Impact of Insulin Resistance on Teen Health

07:03 Factors Contributing to Insulin Resistance

10:51 Reversing Insulin Resistance with Healthy Habits

12:36 Conclusion and Takeaways

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I’m Dr. Jenny Gourgari—pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine and a health coach. 
After helping hundreds of teens struggling with their weight and hormones, I’ve created a whole new path by doing what most programs miss: balance puberty hormones naturally and create habits that actually last.

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Transcript

 Hello, welcome to another episode of the Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens podcast. This is Dr. Jenny Gurgery and I will be continuing the conversation about puberty hormones And I know last week I talked about the basic hormones of puberty and I didn't touch insulin and because insulin is a hormone that plays a significant role not only in teenagers but also in adults, but it has major implications and it's a whole different topic by itself.

So I will be devoting this episode just to focus on the insulin. And it's what we call also insulin resistance. And why do we think insulin resistance is something that if we improve it, we have more chances of getting into a healthier weight. And I see like by talking with families and teenagers, I realized There is a lot of confusion around the insulin and the hypoglycemia, low blood sugars, feeling low blood sugars, feeling shaky, dizziness and the high blood sugars.

 So I wanted to try to clear this confusion and explain better what is insulin and what is insulin resistance and what is diabetes and what  why do we even care about all those things. 

So  insulin is a hormone that is produced by the pancreas, which is  located  near the stomach. The Insulin is responsible to keep the sugar under control so that people don't get diabetes.  Typically, what happens when a teenager has a dessert that has a lot of sugar,  if it was not for the insulin and the teenager ate that sugar, if there was no insulin, the blood sugar would  be like 300 blood sugar.

Why doesn't this happen? That doesn't happen because when you eat the dessert or when you eat anything that has a high carbohydrates, like if you eat bread or pasta or pizza, it's like similar, then you get a higher increase in insulin, and this high increase in insulin helps bring the sugar down so you don't have diabetes.

Your pancreas is working fine. Your pancreas is producing the insulin that you need and keeps your sugar down.  That's normal. That's a normal response.  Now,  what happens if your body goes into this higher and higher insulin production all the time? Let's say that you have high carbohydrates all the time and that leads to you having increased weight gain.

That is when your body develops what we call insulin resistance. What that means is that imagine your pancreas working and working and working and working producing all this insulin. Eventually your pancreas is going to get  And it's going to tell your body, I am done producing so much insulin.

I cannot do this anymore.  And that's when you can get into trouble by developing diabetes.  That's when your insulin is produced,  your body is producing insulin is not enough to sustain the requirements of your body to keep the sugar under control.  Obviously, that doesn't happen from one day to the other because our bodies, especially teenage  bodies, are very healthy, they're very young, the pancreas has a lot of reserves.

However, unfortunately, we now see cases of type 2 diabetes, even in teenagers. And that happens because of the excess weight gain that we have seen in the recent years. in children that are as young as three, four, five, six years of age. So by the time a teenager reaches the age of 16, they may have  10 years of high insulin resistance and they may get into diabetes.

 Which means,  they may have to get medications that in the beginning  may be pills, later on they may require insulin, which is injection etc. The other thing I want to say is that  this is an effect of having too much unhealthy weight. And that is because when the, there is a lot of body fat, around the muscles. 

The body fat  to get the energy that they need, right? To sustain your body functions.

So if there is muscle fat around the fat or overall in your body, that prevents their insulin action. So let's say that somebody who does not have so much fat eats one cupcake.  , let's say this teenager that has a normal BMI has a cupcake, and then there's another teenager.

That has an unhealthy, very high BMI above the 95th percentile, and that second teenager also, it's the same cupcake. Again, if you don't know what BMI is, I invite you to go and listen to episode one of this podcast. The amount of insulin that is secreted  To control the sugar from this one single cupcake, maybe, this much from the boy that has normal body mass index, but it can be double the amount in the body that in the boy that has unhealthy BMI and is overweight, and that happens because the boy that has unhealthy BMI, the boy that has extra fat in their body requires more insulin to make sure that the sugar drops and the sugar gets into the normal levels.

And that's why we keep on saying that having a healthier body mass index, having a healthier weight for your height. decreases the risk to develop eventually type 2 diabetes later in life, because your body does not have to produce so much insulin throughout your teenage years and later on, and therefore you have a healthier pancreas and a healthier  body and less risk to get type 2 diabetes.

Now, I also want to mention Another effect of the high spikes of insulin that has to do with the higher cravings that we see in teenagers. So higher levels of insulin can  lead to drops of sugar.  So when you eat this cupcake, the sugar gets up, the insulin gets up. The sugar is brought down and then this big fluctuation of your sugar up and down, that can create the cravings that can create this feeling of hunger.

And that's why if you have noticed, if you have a snack or a meal that does not have any protein or does not have healthy fats, you see this cravings, like you want to have more chocolate, you want to have more pizza, you want to have more bread, because your body is going into this vicious cycle that it's producing more insulin, it's producing Bigger fluctuations in their sugar and that fluctuation creates the cravings.

Things that teenagers can do to improve insulin resistance are what I have discussed before in about lifestyle modifications. And I will be talking more in future episodes about  how to help. insulin resistance that occurs during puberty. And finally, another thing that I would like to point out is that insulin resistance  is  expected in teenagers.

Even if they have normal body weight, there is an element of insulin resistance that happens in teenagers just because they have higher levels of growth hormone and just because they have high levels of their puberty hormones. The fact that the growth hormone is high, that creates insulin resistance, even if you have normal weight.

That tells you that there are two different reasons on a teenager that is growing to have insulin resistance if they're also overweight. So if they're also overweight and they have extra weight, they can have higher insulin resistance because of that. Then they're growing, there is the growth hormone on top of that.

That's another reason why they can have insulin resistance.  And if they're not sleeping well, that is another reason why they can have, again, even more insulin resistance, because lack of sleep leads to insulin resistance. If they are eating more carbohydrates, more grains without enough protein and fat, that leads to more insulin resistance. 

And Again, insulin by itself is a hormone that is absolutely necessary and if you don't have enough insulin or if your insulin is not acting well, you have insulin resistance, that's when you can get in trouble.  And that's when you develop diabetes. So if you have  completely insulin deficiency, your body cannot produce any insulin.

And there are some teenagers and kids that have  no insulin, that's type one diabetes because of antibodies that attack the pancreas. Or you can have,  eventually develop type two diabetes. And that's when your body has insulin, but that insulin does not act properly. That's when we call insulin resistance. 

Now I want to close this episode with a positive note and I want to say that insulin resistance is a state that is completely reversible. Insulin resistance can go back to normal insulin levels when teenagers learn how to have healthier habits, follow a healthier lifestyle, and they can  can balance their insulin with those natural changes that they can do the actual healthier habits that I will be talking more about this in future and I've already talked on previous episodes.

My take home message. for you today is take care of your pancreas. Make sure that you do anything that you can to improve your insulin resistance. I mentioned a few ways and let me know what you think would be one way that you want to follow and just make it a goal. And again, you don't have to make all of it at the same time.

But even if it is like something simple that I will be walking for 15 minutes every day after I have a dinner, after I have lunch, that's a small change that can improve your insulin resistance, that can improve your prediabetes. Or if you say that I will add some protein when I'm eating something that has carbohydrates, like instead of having a full plate of pasta, I'm going to have half a plate of pasta plus half a plate of grains.

 Or I will add grains with chicken to add some protein, like little changes like that. Just choose one of those changes. And make your pancreas healthy again. So that's all I had for you for today. I hope it was helpful and I will be talking more about hormones. If you haven't subscribed to my newsletter you can go to lifestyleforteens.com and sign up for the free resources and talk to you soon. Take care.