Why Should I Get a HOMA-IR Test?

When you eat carbohydrates, your pancreas produces insulin—a hormone that unlocks cells to absorb glucose for energy. Frequent high-carbohydrate meals force constant insulin production, eventually causing cells to become resistant to insulin. The pancreas compensates by producing even more insulin, creating hyperinsulinemia—chronically elevated insulin levels. Excess insulin damages arterial walls, triggering chronic inflammation and arterial stiffening. This drives hypertension as vessels lose elasticity and become less responsive. Meanwhile, persistent insulin blocks fat burning. Insulin is your body’s “storage hormone”—when elevated, it signals that nutrients (particularly glucose) are available and should be stored, not burned. This promotes fat accumulation in the liver and abdomen, worsening metabolic dysfunction.

Eventually, after years of overwork, exhausted pancreatic cells fail, leading to Type 2 diabetes. Insulin resistance underlies most chronic diseases—heart disease, stroke, dementia, fatty liver, and cancer. The good news is that very low-carbohydrate diets naturally reduce insulin production, while intermittent fasting activates autophagy—a cellular cleanup process that clears damaged cells, reduces insulin demand, restores insulin sensitivity, and reverses this metabolic cascade when implemented consistently. Combined with proper constitutional nutrition, these approaches can restore metabolic health even in those most vulnerable to insulin resistance.