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The Hidden Cause of Hypertension: What Stanford, Toronto & Harvard Researchers Discovered
INSULIN RESISTANCE: THE HIDDEN EPIDEMIC
Definition and Discovery: Insulin Resistance (IR) is a metabolic condition where the body’s cells become less responsive to insulin, requiring the pancreas to produce more insulin to maintain normal blood glucose levels.
Gerald Reaven, MD (Stanford University) formally introduced the concept of insulin resistance as a disease syndrome in his landmark 1988 Banting Lecture at the American Diabetes Association, calling it “Syndrome X” (now known as metabolic syndrome). Dr. Reaven demonstrated that insulin resistance was “the underlying etiology of a set of abnormalities including glucose intolerance, hypertension, and a distinct lipid profile” leading to increased cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Prevalence Statistics:
- 2025 Global Systematic Review (published in Frontiers in Endocrinology, August 2025): 26-30% of adults worldwide have insulin resistance
- 2021 NHANES Data (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, analysed in StatPearls, August 2023): 40% of U.S. adults aged 18-44 have insulin resistance
- 2007-2018 Study (Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, University of Alabama at Birmingham): 42.1% of young American adults (18-44 years) had insulin resistance URL: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8684535/
HOMA-IR Definition: HOMA-IR (Homeostatic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance) is calculated from fasting glucose and insulin levels. Insulin resistance is present when HOMA-IR is ≥1.9-2.5, depending on the population studied.
HOW INSULIN RESISTANCE CAUSES HYPERTENSION
Dr. Pradip Jamnadas (interventional cardiologist, Orlando) states: “It is my expert opinion, I believe hypertension is associated and probably etiologically related to insulin resistance.“
Research published in MDPI Biomedicines (September 2022) titled “Insulin Resistance and High Blood Pressure: Mechanistic Insight on the Role of the Kidney” explains the mechanism: “insulin promotes renal sodium retention” through direct effects on kidney tubules. When kidneys are subject to insulin resistance with compensatory hyper-insulinemia, this enhances sodium and water retention in the kidney, leading to increased blood volume and elevated blood pressure.
The same MDPI Biomedicines study notes: “Insulin resistance triggers the accumulation of visceral fat…which worsens insulin resistance” creating a vicious cycle leading to hypertension.
HOW INSULIN RESISTANCE CAUSES FATTY LIVER (MASLD)
Dr. Jason Fung, MD (nephrologist, author of The Diabetes Code) explained in his 2017 presentation “A New Paradigm of Insulin Resistance”: “When insulin levels stay elevated for a prolonged period, the liver fills up with sugar and fat, like an over-inflated balloon…This is insulin resistance. The liver simply cannot store any more, so rejects the incoming sugars.”
Dr. Fung stated in his September 2019 article “The Biochemistry of Insulin Resistance” on Diet Doctor: “If you have an excess of glucose intracellularly, the liver will try to decompress itself by turning the excess glucose into fat. It exports this fat as VLDL (Very Low-Density Lipoprotein—a cholesterol-carrying particle that transports triglycerides from the liver), leading to high triglycerides and low HDL, and this fat may deposit itself in other visceral organs leading to fatty liver.“
He emphasises: “Fatty liver precedes the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. We know that fatty liver and type 2 diabetes go together all the time.“
HOW INSULIN RESISTANCE DAMAGES THE PANCREAS
Dr. William Davis, MD (cardiologist, author of Wheat Belly) explained in his 2011 book Wheat Belly: “Carbohydrates trigger insulin release from the pancreas, causing growth of visceral fat; visceral fat causes insulin resistance and inflammation. High blood sugars, triglycerides, and fatty acids damage the pancreas. After years of overwork, the pancreas succumbs to the thrashing it has taken from glucotoxicity, lipotoxicity, and inflammation, essentially ‘burning out,’ leaving a deficiency of insulin and an increase in blood glucose—diabetes.“
Dr. Davis further noted in his November 2020 blog post “Reverse INSULIN RESISTANCE”: “Over time, the pancreas ‘burns out’ (i.e., injured by high blood sugar and other factors) and can no longer keep up with the increased demand. This is typically when someone is put on insulin injections that worsen insulin resistance, cause weight gain often to extravagant degrees, and increases risk for all the diseases that result from insulin resistance.“
WHY DOCTORS USE DRUGS INSTEAD OF ADDRESSING ROOT CAUSES
Dr. William Davis states: “Most doctors sadly remain utterly in the dark, doing more to make the diabetes epidemic worse, not contributing to any solution except to offer drugs and procedures.“
Dr. Davis explains: “We describe how many of the drugs used to treat type 2 diabetes, while lowering the blood sugar, make the underlying disease worse by increasing body fat and increasing insulin resistance. The biggest culprit here is the use of insulin.“
Dr. Jason Fung adds: “If you think that the cause of type 2 diabetes is the ‘internal starvation state’ of the cells, then the correct treatment is to give as much insulin as is needed to push the glucose into the cells. But if insulin resistance is actually overload…That’s the wrong therapy to use.“
Dr. Fung noted in his Diabetes Code (2018): “Insulin resistance is thought to precede the development of T2D by 10 to 15 years,” providing a window for intervention before irreversible damage occurs.
DIETARY INTERVENTION WORKS: THE EVIDENCE
Reversing Hypertension Through Insulin Resistance Reduction:
Dr. William Davis wrote in his November 2020 blog post: “If you have coronary disease, hypertension, high triglycerides (any value above 60 mg/dl I would regard as high), fatty liver, blood sugar of 90 mg/dl or more, fasting insulin above 4 mIU/L, or have weight around your abdomen, you have insulin resistance.” He provides a protocol: “Eliminate foods that raise blood sugar and insulin—If insulin resistance is provoked by repetitive rises in blood sugar and insulin, stop eating foods that raise blood sugar and insulin: wheat, grains, sugars.“
Dr. Pradip Jamnadas states in his practice guidelines: “Management of insulin resistance will therefore, in turn, reduce hypertension.” He emphasises that through intermittent fasting and metabolic protocols, patients can “reduce insulin levels which is key to preventing chronic inflammation and cardiovascular disease” including hypertension.
Research published in Hypertension (American Heart Association, 2019) titled “Role of Insulin-Mediated Antinatriuresis in Sodium Homeostasis and Hypertension” confirms: “Insulin exerts a powerful, basal antinatriuretic influence directly on the kidney” and that reducing hyperinsulinemia through dietary intervention addresses the root cause of hypertension in insulin-resistant patients.
Broader Metabolic Reversal:
Dr. Jason Fung has demonstrated through his Intensive Dietary Management program: “In Fung’s clinic at the University of Toronto, most of the patients with type 2 diabetes have a complete reversal of the disease and are off medications in 3 to 6 months” using intermittent fasting and low-carbohydrate nutrition.
Dr. Ken Berry, MD (family physician, Tennessee), practicing for over two decades, advocates for what he calls the “Proper Human Diet“—emphasising meat, eggs, and elimination of processed carbohydrates and seed oils. He reports patients reversing obesity, type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, and hypertension through low-carb and carnivore dietary approaches combined with intermittent fasting.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Insulin resistance affects 26-40% of adults and is the root cause of hypertension, fatty liver disease, and pancreatic dysfunction leading to type 2 diabetes.
Medications manage symptoms but don’t address—and often worsen—the underlying insulin resistance. Dietary interventions eliminating refined sugars and grains, combined with intermittent fasting, have been shown to reverse insulin resistance and its manifestations including hypertension in clinical practice, offering a true solution rather than symptom management.