# Insulin resistance Category: Conditions Also known as: metabolic syndrome Insulin resistance is fundamentally a stress reaction, not a simple consequence of carbohydrate consumption. Peat argued that the condition is not a generalized failure of cells to respond to insulin, but a differential sensitivity: under stress, the liver becomes resistant to… 10 passages · 2 authors · 2013–2023 · Most-cited: [Georgi Dinkov](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/voices/georgi-dinkov/index.md) Canonical page: https://bioenergeticoracle.com/concepts/insulin-resistance ## Synthesis **Insulin resistance** is fundamentally a stress reaction, not a simple consequence of carbohydrate consumption. [Source 1, 3] Peat argued that the condition is not a generalized failure of cells to respond to insulin, but a *differential sensitivity*: under stress, the liver becomes resistant to insulin, impairing glucose disposal, while **fat cells** become highly sensitive to insulin, actively converting sugar into fat. [Source 1, 3] This explains why hyperglycemia and obesity can coexist, as the stress-induced hormonal environment directs energy toward storage rather than oxidation. [Source 1] The diagnostic failure to measure blood insulin routinely means that stress-induced hyperglycemia is often mislabeled as classical insulin-deficiency diabetes, leading to inappropriate insulin prescriptions. [Source 3] The primary driver of this metabolic block is the **Randall cycle**, the competition between **free fatty acids** and glucose for mitochondrial oxidation. [Source 5, 10] Dinkov has emphasized that insulin resistance is driven by an excess of fatty acids in the bloodstream, which prevents cells from properly oxidizing glucose. [Source 6, 10] This is not an intrinsic cellular defect but a state imposed by the metabolic environment; cells forced to oxidize fats cannot simultaneously metabolize carbohydrates, causing glucose to be diverted into *lactic acid* or converted into fat via fatty acid synthase. [Source 10] The accumulation of unstable **polyunsaturated fats** is particularly problematic, as they not only block glucose oxidation but also spontaneously form toxic aldehydes that further impair metabolic function. [Source 7] The hormonal context of insulin resistance is dominated by the catabolic stress hormones **cortisol** and **estrogen**. [Source 8, 9] Dinkov views the entire metabolic syndrome spectrum as an endocrine disorder on the continuum of Cushing's syndrome, where cortisol drives **gluconeogenesis**, producing the majority of elevated blood glucose seen in diabetics, and redistributes fat centrally to create visceral adiposity. [Source 8] These stress hormones directly suppress thyroid function and metabolic rate, creating a vicious cycle where a *low metabolic rate* both causes and is worsened by insulin resistance. [Source 9] The condition is therefore a sign of systemic energy failure, where the ratio of catabolic to anti-catabolic hormones has shifted unfavorably. [Source 6, 9] This framework explains why insulin resistance is not exclusive to obesity. Dinkov has noted that lean individuals can develop the condition, and that some extremely obese populations never develop diabetes because they lack the continuous endogenous supply of fatty acids from stress-driven lipolysis. [Source 2, 4] The crucial factor is the combination of accumulated fat and elevated baseline lipolysis, which floods the bloodstream with free fatty acids. [Source 4] Simply adding more sugar to an already insulin-resistant state can worsen the problem by triggering an insulin response that provokes a compensatory cortisol release, further increasing fatty acid mobilization. [Source 10] The therapeutic implication is that lowering the supply of fat to the bloodstream—whether by reducing stress, blocking cortisol, or eliminating polyunsaturated fats—should restore the cell's ability to oxidize glucose, as there is no inherent damage to the cellular machinery. [Source 10] ## People also ask ### How does stress cause insulin resistance? Peat argued that stress creates a differential sensitivity where the liver becomes resistant to insulin while fat cells become highly sensitive, directing sugar into fat storage rather than oxidation and leading to hyperglycemia alongside obesity. ### Why do free fatty acids block glucose metabolism? The entry describes the Randall cycle, where an excess of fatty acids in the bloodstream prevents cells from properly oxidizing glucose, forcing glucose to be diverted into lactic acid or converted into fat instead of being used for energy. ### Can lean people develop insulin resistance? Yes, the corpus notes that lean individuals can develop insulin resistance if they have elevated baseline lipolysis from stress, which floods the bloodstream with free fatty acids, while some obese populations avoid diabetes by lacking this stress-driven fat release. ## Related concepts - [Obesity and Weight Gain](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/obesity-and-weight-gain/index.md) - [Beta oxidation](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/beta-oxidation/index.md) - [Cellular respiration](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/cellular-respiration/index.md) - [Cortisol](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/cortisol/index.md) - [Free fatty acid theory of insulin resistance](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/free-fatty-acid-theory-of-insulin-resistance/index.md) - [Fruit](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/fruit/index.md) ## Cited passages Passage numbers match the `[Source N]` markers in the synthesis above. ### Source 1 — Politics And Science: Diabetes 2000-2001 Ray Peat · Interview · Jul 26, 2013 > **Ray Peat:** So one of the failures of diagnosis still is to look at what is really happening when you're resistant to insulin. Is it real generalized resistance or is it simply that you turn everything to fat? And it's important to distinguish between fat cells and muscle or brain or liver cells. the stress reaction will produce a resistance of your liver to insulin, but your fat cells become very sensitive to insulin and will produce fat while you maintain high blood sugar from the stress reaction. ### Source 2 — Why Some Sugar is Actually Good For You, & Methylene Blue too w/ Georgi Dinkov Georgi Dinkov · Interview · Mar 21, 2019 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3pZoJZFKPQ > **Georgi Dinkov:** And it's considered a great thing currently in mainstream medicine and in competitive athletics. And there are so many products sold online that are designed and developed to increase your rate of fat burning. And, you know, I continued with this athleticism, so to speak, post-collegiate athleticism. I would run four or five times a week. I would run six miles each time. And it felt great, but around 2008, I started getting these strange symptoms. I couldn't sleep. My skin basically started getting these weird rashes. I was getting headaches that would come on and off. And I went to my doctor, and basically the doctor did a bunch of different tests. I had an MRI on my head just to rule out something really bad. I had an MRI on my spine. The doctor did some blood tests and said, no, everything looks fine. We think that you basically, do you eat any sugar, was the first question the doctor asked. I said, well, yeah, I do, but it's not much. Well, you really need to cut down on the sugar because all these symptoms that you're seeing, we're seeing them basically in people that are developing the so-called metabolic syndrome. which is a combination of being overweight, having high blood pressure, high blood sugar, et cetera, et cetera, except that I wasn't overweight. I was actually quite skinny. That was the first paradox, which we're probably going to expand on later. Many people think that people with insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome are necessarily obese or overweight. That's not the case, at least it wasn't in my case. Anyways, the doctor said, well, you're doing everything fine. We think it's just a temporary viral event. So why don't you drop the sugar and continue what you're doing and come back in six months? So I did. And basically, due to the doctor encouraging me, I basically got into this low-carb movement now known as the paleo diet. Basically, originally it wasn't known as the paleo diet. ### Source 3 — Politics And Science: Diabetes 2000-2001 Ray Peat · Interview · Jul 26, 2013 > **John Barkhausen:** Well, I'm just sort of feeling our way through the diabetes issue here. > > **Ray Peat:** The insulin itself should be diagnostic of diabetes if diabetes is to be defined as an insulin deficiency or as a reason for taking insulin. But when that was investigated, the insulin wasn't reliably diagnostic and so it's extremely rare for a doctor to actually measure insulin before diagnosing diabetes. If a doctor prescribes thyroid hormone without measuring the amount of thyroid hormone in the body, they lose their license. It happens all the time. But strangely because estrogen and insulin are such profitable big businesses, no one ever bothers measuring your insulin before prescribing insulin, or seldom they measure your actual estrogen before prescribing that. And very often when a kid gets a flu or some other viral infection and is in a stress condition, turning their tissue to glucose to fight the infection. They'll have extremely high blood sugar. Very often these kids get put on insulin for the rest of their life with terrible side effects from taking too much insulin just because they had hyperglycemia without trying to find out why they had such high blood sugar. And Since the popularity of insulin treatment and the growing obesity of the population, a new sort of official sub-definition of diabetes has come into existence, which it bypasses the problem that diabetes was being diagnosed without measuring insulin and so now they have the type of diabetes called insulin independent or the it is basically the same as as something called syndrome X but non insulin dependent diabetes is really among middle-aged people and older, it's the main thing that's called diabetes. And it's strictly a stress syndrome brought on by the hormone disruptions that commonly begin in the 30s and 40s. And this form of diabetes is simply resistance of the tissue to insulin in the sense of disposing of glucose. But the tissue is sensitive to insulin in the sense of turning on fat production. ### Source 4 — Episode 244 - Interview with Georgi Dinkov: Causes of Insulin Resistance, Obesity is an Endocrine Problem, and Problems with Excess Cortisol Georgi Dinkov · Interview · Apr 14, 2023 > **Brian Gryn:** Now, Georgi, I got to interrupt you here. I've listened to a lot of podcasts. You have a ton of information. You talk really fast. So I'm going to, if I try to slow you down. Oh, sure. > > **Georgi Dinkov:** Okay. No, no, no problem. > > **Brian Gryn:** Not everyone can retain like you can retain. I don't know how you do it, but either way. Okay. So. Let's touch a little bit on like insulin resistance. I mean, I've had, you know, Dr. Ben Beekman and I've had, you know, Jason Fung. And a lot of times insulin is sort of demonized. High chronic insulin is sort of the scapegoat in all of this. What would you say the true cause of insulin resistance is? ### Source 5 — [Ep.4]How To Accomplish Metabolic Flexibility: The Key to a Longer Life Georgi Dinkov · Interview · Oct 9, 2023 > **Georgi Dinkov:** So the metabolic flexibility, I guess, to me, the best example is a young healthy child. Basically, they will oxidize whichever one of the two major macronutrients you give them at the time either fats or, or glucose. And of course, we can also oxidize protein, but it gets converted to glucose, ultimately, by oxidizing your fats or glucose. So I think everybody who’s been around should or has children has noticed that children, you know, processed food very quickly, they get hungry very quickly, they can also get tired very quickly, but they also recover much faster. And let’s say if you don’t provide them with glucose for a period of time, they will get a little cranky here because they’re kind of switching over to the observation of fat. But but you know, the energy is still there. And then when you feed them, they usually try, they usually get sleepy, and then they fall asleep, they recover and they wake up, they’re ready to go again. That’s the kind of process that we’re seeing start to degrade as age advances. And, and with doors, I think the late 30s, maybe even the mid 30s. We’re starting to see various degrees of insulin resistance in the in the general population, if they’re not even if they’re not formally diabetic, or have a health problem. Yeah. In other words, they’re seeing Used to be both the accumulation of extra fat especially around the middle section, and also a tendency towards inability to properly oxidize the glucose. And a lot of a lot of people interpret that as Oh, I just need to cut down on my glucose intake. But a child can handle this glucose intake without any problems. So something is happening metabolically or, you know, maybe even genetically, as you said earlier, that is that is shifting us towards insulin resistance as we age. And there’s been a, you know, great debate going on for at least for at least 100 years. What exactly is causing that? ### Source 6 — Cortisol the killer and Cortisol the life saver w/Georgi Dinkov Georgi Dinkov · Interview · May 5, 2022 > **Kitty Martone:** Wow. So the, so ultimately this issue that's going on, I mean, not to simplify it to this, to the, to just say it's just age, but this metabolic issue at a, you know, very, very basic, basic bottom level is that, you know, we're, we're needing more energy and we're not clearing out the exhaust quick enough. And we're basically aging rapidly. So So the, so the insulin, so just quickly before we wrap up, just could you tell me the, like I, my education is thought you want to fix your thyroid, fix your gut. And, but you talk a lot about supplementing thyroid and how important it is. Can you say that? I know I'm keeping you over, but > > **Georgi Dinkov:** resistance or like, I mean, in the context of insulin resistance or in general supplementing thyroid. > > **Kitty Martone:** I would, let's talk about insulin resistance. ### Source 7 — [Ep.4]How To Accomplish Metabolic Flexibility: The Key to a Longer Life Georgi Dinkov · Interview · Oct 9, 2023 > **Georgi Dinkov:** So if you’re, if you have an excessive presence of excessive amounts of these fatty acids in your tissues, meaning insulin is not going to, you’re not going to be able to do its job. So the normal reaction, which is when you ingest carbs, easily rises, and suppresses lipolysis increases uptake of the glucose into the cell and oxidizing glucose properly. If you have something blocking the insulin receptor, that process will not work. You can be insulin resistant. In fact, there’s a great video I can send you later of a guy who is perfectly healthy lean, he does, he checks his blood, blood, blood glucose regularly, I think it’s in the 80s. And then he chugs a glass of olive oil, or like corn oil, I think it was corn oil. Within 30 minutes. His blood glucose is already registered into the hundreds, which is pre diabetic. I think he managed to get it to the diabetic level, which is I think, above 125. I think it’s the cutoff currently. And then as he slowly metabolized the fat, his blood glucose slowly dropped there basically return to normal. So to me this is a great example of insulin resistance and what ultimately diabetes is driven by these fats, it’s just sitting there already diabetic people, instead of checking one glass, these people have some have an endogenous continuous supply of these fats. And for as long as that’s the case, their blood glucose will stay elevated above normal. ### Source 8 — Food Metabolism & Diets | Georgi Dinkov Georgi Dinkov · Interview · Jul 24, 2023 > **Dr. Ben Edwards:** Okay. So if you had a patient come in who was maybe 50 or 60 pounds overweight, had high insulin, maybe even PCOS looking, not having monthly cycles, appeared to be just highly insulin resistant, would your approach be some of these supplements you just recommended plus doing some resistance training and then eating consistent glucose? > > **Georgi Dinkov:** so uh i view the specifically diabetes type q additional resistance and the whole metabolic syndrome spectrum i view them as an endocrine disorder i think a lot of a lot of doctors would agree uh but for some reason cortisol is not getting the attention that's really needed a lot of doctors will recommend complete avoidance of carbs to people with insulin resistance and especially type 2 diabetes despite the fact that even medical books state that 80% of the blood glucose, of the elevated blood glucose seen in the blood of a diabetic or obese or insulin-resistant patient is non-dietary of origin. In other words, it's produced by the body, and the main source of that is the process of gluconeogenesis, and the most potent driver of the process is the hormone cortisol. So conversely, if that hypothesis is correct, in other words, if our elevated blood glucose in a diabetic patient or obese patient or PCOS patient is driven by cortisol, you would expect administering an anti-cortisol medication to have really beneficial effects. And that has been the case. There is a drug on the market already approved for a different reason. It's known as the abortion pill. Its code name is RU486, also known as bifepristone. And it's currently marketed as the abortion pill simply because the market share for selling the drug is much bigger. But the drug was designed by the French company Sanofi back in the 80s as a cortisol antagonist. They just simply realized that the market for the drug was very small because at the time, actually to this day, the market for cortisol antagonists is mostly people with so-called Cushing syndrome or Cushing disease. It's a very rare disease or very, very rare syndrome. However, if you look at all of the people that have the sort of called central obesity, metabolic syndrome, some type of diabetes, they're all on the spectrum of cushion. They all have central obesity. ### Source 9 — Cortisol the killer and Cortisol the life saver w/Georgi Dinkov Georgi Dinkov · Interview · May 5, 2022 > **Kitty Martone:** And the same thing applies here. > > **Georgi Dinkov:** So insulin resistance really is a sign that you have a lower metabolic rate. Something has lowered it. And then the things that it could be due to the food you eat. Many of the things we eat are metabolic inhibitors. Could be also due to the stress, as I mentioned. The stress hormones, cortisol and estrogen directly suppress your metabolic rate and increase the synthesis and storage of fat, right? It could be also the endocrine disruptors. You know, it's a combination of things, but the way to lose the extra weight is not by overexerting yourself because you're contributing to the stress signal. Fat means stressed by definition. Now, of course, if an extremely stressed, maybe lean, but that's not maintainable for a very long period of time. I don't know of a single person who lost their weight through extreme dieting and some extreme measures and managed to keep it off because ultimately they found out that they started gaining weight even at the drastically reduced caloric intake that they used to actually get slim. The body said, oh my God, 700 calories a day. Okay, you lost all the weight, but if that's the new baseline, And since you've told me that life is very hard by overexerting yourself, guess what? I'm going to find a way to start storing calories, even at 700 calories a day. And the way this happens is by shutting down more and more of your non-essential luxurious... functions that actually is what makes us humans. If you look at cancer as the extreme, cancer is actually a regression of evolution to a very primitive life stage, kind of like a bacteria or amoeba. All it does is eat and grow, and there is no shape to it. That's really what cancer is. It's a shapeless, unlimited growth, and the two hormones, two of the hormones that promote it excessively are cortisol and estrogen. ### Source 10 — Does sugar cause insulin resistance and make you fat? Ray Peat Criticisms Part 2 with Georgi Dinkov Georgi Dinkov · Interview · Jun 8, 2021 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRcXtTjfb-M > **Strong Sistas:** so I think that that's a really important point that we should cover just briefly. So what does someone do who's insulin resistant and is interested in switching from a low carb to more of a pro metabolic or carbohydrate fueled? > > **Georgi Dinkov:** okay so a couple of things uh it is an endocrinological problem typically associated with cortisol and estrogen in both men and women but the direct insulin resistance is driven by elevated levels of free fatty acids in the blood and because the cell can only metabolize either carbohydrates or fats at any single point in time due to the infamous randall cycle If you're oversupplying fatty acids, basically obese people, some obese people tend to have elevated so-called lipolysis and stress raises lipolysis, right? So as long as you're flooding your bloodstream with fat, whether through diet or by being stressed, which causes cortisol and adrenaline to shred your fatty tissue as well. This prevents the cells from metabolizing glucose, which means that if you take something or do something that lowers the supply of fat to the bloodstream, whether through diet or through the fatty tissue, right? Then this should improve the metabolism of glucose because there's nothing damaged inside the cell. Many people have looked for very carefully, I mean, for decades and thought that insulin resistance and diabetes are actually some kind of a defect in the cell, just like cancer is. Turn out there is no such thing. Basically, the cell can only do what environment allows it to do and what has been set up to do naturally. So which means I can only oxidize either carbs or fats. If you're giving me fats all the time, I cannot metabolize those carbs, which means they're going to float around. _Generated 2026-07-20 from the Bioenergetic Oracle corpus._