Healing Insulin Resistance Through Gut Health

Author's Bio: Katie Bailey, MS, RD, LD, FNC

Hi everyone. Welcome back to our channel.

Insulin Resistance is a growing health concern, but did you know that the health of your gut can actually be a key player in improving or even reversing the condition?

In today's video, I'll be diving into what is insulin resistance and how does it impact the body?

What is the connection between insulin resistance and gut health?

What diet plan is beneficial for insulin resistance? And what can you do to improve insulin resistance?

Hi, I'm Katie Bailey. I'm a gut health dietitian at Oswald Digestive Clinic, where we help individuals improve and resolve their bothersome gut issues. If you're interested in learning more about gut health, I'll link a free guide Five Ways to Improve Your Gut Health here.

Alright, let's get started on today's topic.

[Video Transcript Below Video - it is the same information]

What is insulin resistance?

Insulin resistance is a metabolic condition in which your cells do not respond properly to insulin. Insulin is a hormone that is produced by your pancreas that is essential for blood sugar regulation. Normally, insulin acts as a key to allow glucose or sugar from your bloodstream into your cells where it can be used for energy. When you have insulin resistance, your cells become less responsive to insulin's signal and glucose cannot enter the cells efficiently. To compensate, your pancreas will then produce more insulin in an effort to keep your blood sugar under control. This leads to higher than normal insulin levels in the blood over time. If the pancreas cannot keep up with the demand, blood sugar levels rise eventually leading to pre-diabetes and type two diabetes.

How does insulin resistance impact the body?

Insulin resistance disrupts the body's ability to regulate our blood sugar levels, which is going to lead to a cascade of different metabolic problems that can affect nearly every organ system in the body when left untreated. Persistent high blood sugar can damage our blood vessels in different organs as well as increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, and nerve damage. Insulin resistance often leads to weight gain, particularly in the abdomen because excess glucose is stored as fat when it cannot be used in the cells efficiently. Fatty liver disease may also develop when the liver accumulates too much fat because insulin resistance disrupts normal fat metabolism.

Insulin resistance is linked to elevated triglycerides and LDL levels, which can increase your risk for cardiovascular disease. It's also been associated with conditions like metabolic syndrome and PCOS, while insulin resistance doesn't often have obvious symptoms. Some signs include weight gain, fatigue, increased hunger or thirst, and sometimes even darkened skin patches and skin tags.

What is the connection between insulin resistance and gut health?

So emergent research is showing a strong connection between insulin resistance and gut health, primarily through the composition and function of our gut microbiota. So the first connection is through gut microbiota composition. A diverse and balanced gut microbiome supports healthy insulin sensitivity while gut dysbiosis or that imbalance in the microbiome is associated with greater insulin resistance. The second benefit, or the second way that it's connected, is through short chain fatty acid production. So the beneficial bacteria in our gut ferment dietary fiber and produce short chain fatty acids. Those short chain fatty acids play a crucial role in glucose and lipid metabolism. It enhances insulin sensitivity as well as reduces inflammation and supports a healthy gut barrier.

The next connection is through gut barrier integrity and inflammation. A healthy gut barrier prevents harmful substances from leaking into the bloodstream. When this barrier is compromised, like with leaky gut, things like bacteria toxins, undigested food, can then leak into the bloodstream and trigger systemic inflammation. Now, we know that chronic inflammation is a key driver for insulin resistance.

Now the last connection is through microbial metabolites and hormones. So the gut microbiome influences the production of metabolites such as short-chain fatty acids, bile acids, and branch chain amino acids, as well as hormones like GLP one, which all affect insulin signaling and glucose homeostasis.

What diet plan is beneficial for healing insulin resistance?

A diet plan for healing insulin resistance emphasizes foods that's going to support our metabolic health as well as a diverse thriving gut microbiome. So the first thing you want to do is to focus on whole nutrient dense foods, prioritizing balanced meals that contain fruits, vegetables, complex carbohydrates, proteins, and healthy fats. Now, this is not only going to give you the nutrients that your body needs, but it's also going to help to stabilize those blood sugars. The next thing you want to do is emphasize fiber. So fiber is what's going to feed that beneficial bacteria in the gut and promote the production of your short chain fatty acids, as well as regulate blood sugar levels.

You also want to make sure to include resistant starches, polyphenols, and prebiotic specific fibers to make sure that you're really feeding all the good bacteria in your gut. The next thing is to eat probiotic rich foods. This is going to increase the beneficial bacteria or introduce the beneficial bacteria into the gut, which is going to help to modulate inflammation and help with metabolic health. And then lastly, minimize added sugars, damaged fats, and highly processed foods, as these are all going to disrupt the gut microbiome, increase inflammation and worsen insulin resistance.

What can you do to improve or reverse insulin resistance?

So improving or reversing insulin resistance through gut health involves a combination of dietary and lifestyle strategies to nurture a balanced gut microbiome. Like I mentioned before, adding in probiotic rich foods or targeted supplements is going to help to put that healthy bacteria into the gut.

Now, certain strains of probiotics or bacteria like lactobacillus acidophilus and bifidobacteria breve have shown promise in improving insulin sensitivity and reducing inflammation. Eating a high fiber diet is going to help to feed that bacteria and keep it diverse and healthy and happy, and it's also going to produce those short chain fatty acids helping to reduce inflammation and help to enhance insulin sensitivity. And then lastly, limiting the consumption of those highly processed foods and added sugars while increasing whole nutrient dense foods and balanced meals to really help stabilize the blood sugar and promote a healthy gut microbiome.

Other things you can do is to exercise regularly. So physical activity supports a healthy gut microbiome and directly helps improve blood sugar and insulin sensitivity. Managing your stress. So chronic stress negatively impacts a gut microbiome and insulin signaling support a healthy gut barrier. So a poor barrier we know can lead to systemic inflammation, which can then drive insulin resistance. So incorporating more things like bone broth, collagen, glutamine, vitamin A, zinc, and those short chain fatty acids can all help to promote a healthy and strong barrier.

To wrap up our topic for today,

Our gut microbiome influences insulin resistance through multiple mechanisms, modulating inflammation, producing beneficial metabolites like short chain fatty acids, maintaining gut barrier function, as well as affecting energy metabolism. Improving gut health through our diet, supplements and lifestyle factors may be a promising strategy to help prevent improve and or reverse insulin resistance.

Alright, that's it for today's video. If you like this video, please hit the like button and subscribe for more nutrition videos. Let us know in the comments if you have any questions. And if you're interested in working with the clinic, you can click the link here to schedule an appointment. We do take insurance. You can find more information about that on our website.

Thank you for watching. I'll see you next time. Bye.

If you'd like to explore any of this information further or obtain an individualized nutrition plan, you can schedule an initial appointment at our clinic.  We also take insurance and some of our clients get full coverage, which is great.

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