Insulin causing weight gain is much like a sheep in wolf's clothing. For some people, insulin can produce weight gain by enhancing fat cell function and preventing the mobilization of fat into energy. To treat this, physicians recommend a small decrease in daily calories as well as an increase in physical activity to halt putting on weight. But usually it's for any different reason that people put on weight using insulin. Well, actually, it's for one of those four different reasons:
1. When glucose levels are consistently high, usually before a diagnosis of diabetes or when medicine is not controlling diabetes well, glucose builds up in the blood stream. In an attempt to get rid of this excess blood sugar levels, you'll urinate frequently. The additional glucose gets excreted, and together with it calories - presto, you lose weight!
When you begin using insulin, your blood sugar normalizes, your body stops excreting glucose and calories, and presto, you will get weight! Although it appears that insulin is the cause of your weight gain, in fact you're gaining weight because insulin has become allowing your body to absorb the calories it was previously flushing away.
2. Just like some medications, insulin may cause hypoglycemia. Thus your appetite increases and you may consume extra calories. Also, hypoglycemia can stimulate a particular panic that causes you to overeat in a rush to get your blood sugar support.
If this happens with any frequency, you'll gain weight. A diabetes educator told me that when patients complain of putting on the weight and don't know why, she first asks them whether they're having a lot of lows.
3. If you take an insulin that requires you to eat on the schedule (such as premixed, intermediate, or some longer-acting insulins,) you can't miss meals and could need to eat snacks. This may cause weight gain. If this applies to you, speak with your health care provider in regards to a possible change in your medication. Often, utilizing a rapid-acting insulin before meals with a long-acting insulin taken once each day, or utilizing an insulin pump, can help you do not eat extra food.
4. People often give themselves more latitude to consume more calories when utilizing insulin: "Oh, I can have dessert. I'll just ‘cover' it with some extra insulin." If this becomes a habit, there'll be more of you to cover.
One outgrowth from the fear of putting on the weight from using insulin is "diabulimia" - an eating disorder that occurs mostly among teenage girls with type 1 diabetes who skip insulin injections to lose weight. Because high sugar causes your body to excrete calories, skipping insulin doses is an easy way to shed extra pounds.
This is extremely dangerous behavior, because continuous high sugars lead to both short-term harm (for example dehydration, fatigue, and the breakdown of muscle tissue) and the possible earlier onset of long-term diabetic complications (including blindness, kidney disease, and cardiovascular disease). As reported through the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, a truly alarming 30 percent of adolescent type 1 females have skipped or restricted insulin doses in order to lose weight.
If you notice this behavior in your child, or in yourself, says Dr. Ann Goebel-Fabbri, a clinical psychologist at the Joslin Diabetes Center who conducts research in this area, try to find both a diet disorder specialist along with a diabetes specialist who are able to help.
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