Insulin resistance is a condition where the cells in your muscles, fat, and liver don’t respond well to insulin. Insulin is a hormone that acts like a key to unlock cells and allow glucose (sugar) from your bloodstream to enter for energy. When cells are resistant, the pancreas has to make more and more insulin to try and force the glucose into the cells, keeping blood sugar levels temporarily in the normal range.

Pre-diabetes

This is the stage that occurs when the pancreas can no longer produce enough extra insulin to overcome the resistance. As a result, blood glucose levels begin to rise above normal, but are not yet high enough to be diagnosed as full-blown Type 2 diabetes.

Essentially, insulin resistance comes first and is the key step in the progression toward pre-diabetes and then Type 2 diabetes. Almost everyone with prediabetes has some degree of insulin resistance.

Insulin Resistance Syndrome and Metabolic Syndrome are essentially the same thing – they’re different names for the same clinical condition. “Insulin Resistance Syndrome” was actually the original term, but “Metabolic Syndrome” has become the more widely used name in clinical practice.
Both terms describe a cluster of metabolic abnormalities that tend to occur together:

• Abdominal obesity (central adiposity)
• Elevated blood pressure
• Elevated fasting glucose or insulin
• resistance
• High triglycerides
• Low HDL cholesterol

The name “Insulin Resistance Syndrome” more explicitly emphasises what you recognise as the root cause – that insulin resistance is the underlying driver of these interconnected problems. “Metabolic Syndrome” is perhaps a bit more descriptive of the broader metabolic dysfunction, but it doesn’t highlight the causal mechanism as clearly.

Some clinicians prefer “Insulin Resistance Syndrome” precisely because it points to the underlying pathophysiology rather than just describing the symptoms. This aligns with your approach of addressing insulin resistance as the root cause rather than treating each component separately.
The terms are used interchangeably in medical literature, though you’ll see “Metabolic Syndrome” more frequently in current diagnostic criteria and clinical guidelines.