Breaking Insulin Resistance: Your Guide to Blood-Sugar Mastery (Performance & Longevity Series)

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Transcript: Breaking Insulin Resistance: Your Guide to Blood-Sugar Mastery (Performance & Longevity Series)

Season 11, Episode 4  | August 7, 2025

[MUSIC]

Welcome to Life Time Talks in our series on performance and longevity with MIORA. Today’s topic is breaking insulin resistance — your guide to blood sugar mastery. I’m Jamie Martin, I’m back with Life Times’s Chief Science Officer, Jim LaValle. Jim, how are you today?

Doing great.

Awesome. Well, this is a big topic we’re diving into. We’re talking about blood sugar control and all of the different pieces that can indicate that we have some insulin resistance. So let’s start right there. Because I know this is something that a lot of people are wondering about. It’s something that often gets tested at the doctor and when we’re working with a health care provider.

Right. Right.

So let’s just start by breaking down the topic of insulin resistance and what it is.
Sure. So basically, when you eat, your blood sugar goes up. And when your blood sugar goes up, your body releases insulin, in order to get that glucose out of the bloodstream, put glycogen on your muscle to be used for energy in the future. And that’s how we control our blood sugar.

Right.

Insulin resistance occurs when you release insulin in response to that glucose that’s in your bloodstream. But the insulin receptor is sluggish. It’s not working like it should. So it’s resistant to the insulin attaching to the insulin receptor and creating the correct utilization of glucose. So insulin resistance is a big problem because as you get insulin resistant, you trigger more metabolic inflammation or inflammatory signaling.
So we really don’t want to become insulin resistant. It’s estimated that 38% of the US population is insulin-resistant. Another 12% are actually people with diabetes. So half of the US population is either journeyed through insulin resistance to being a person with diabetes, or are currently insulin-resistant. And it’s the leading reason why we have our obesity epidemic, which by 2030, it’s currently estimated that 50% of the US population will be obese. And we already have over 70% of our population being overweight, principally driven by this problem of insulin resistance. There’s other factors, but this is a big deal.
I
t’s a huge deal. And like you said, it’s becoming increasingly common. One thing that I have — we’ve researched, whether it’s an experience life or just done our research about health in general is there’s a lead-up to becoming kind of pre-diabetic. And it’s often happening is it years before. So there’s things that we can do to keep our eyes out for indicators that there are issues. Before we delve into that, I know we’re going to dive into those things, how is insulin resistance different from blood sugar dysregulation?

Well, I mean, you could have a lot of different types of blood sugar dysregulation, right? So blood sugar dysregulation could be you’re just already a person with diabetes, right? So insulin resistance is just one of the facets that lead you to the biggest issues of blood sugar dysregulation.

When you hear of people being hypoglycemic, in many cases, it’s because they eat certain foods that spike their blood sugar, and then they overproduce insulin, which drops their blood sugar out into a low blood sugar state, which, of course, is going to make you feel sweaty, and you’re going to feel a little bit cold and clammy and dizzy and lightheaded. So there’s things that you’ll feel because of that. But insulin resistance is really at the source of most blood sugar dysregulation.

What is an ideal state for blood sugar insulin? Because I know we also talk about, and I’ve gotten these confused in the past myself. So I’d love for you to distinguish them like insulin sensitive versus insulin resistance. So I think it’s important to just explain what insulin sensitivity is, too.

Yeah. So I mean insulin sensitivity is just how responsive is your body to that release of insulin when it’s under demand. And when you’re insulin resistant, that means that your sensitivity is reduced.

Yes.

So you’re not insulin-sensitive now you’ve become resistant to that insulin signal. And it’s interesting when you look at a lot of the big longitudinal studies because you mentioned that, hey, this is a big problem. And it’s literally a decade of leading up to the problem before it occurs. But a lot of people don’t realize, there’s some simple things that you can do to calculate where your risks are at.

So if you know your blood sugar, for every point over 84 of a fasting glucose, and this is based on a Kaiser Permanente study of almost 47,000 lives over 10 years, it’s a 6% risk of being a person with diabetes in the next decade.

So if you go to the doctor and you have a 95 blood sugar, which would be considered normal, you have a 60% risk of being a person with diabetes in the next decade, and you already have vascular damage that’s starting to occur when your blood sugar is in the 90s.

Now, that was one study. And then a Japanese study just came out in 2022 that showed for every percentage point over a 90 fasting glucose, you have a 9% risk of being a person with diabetes in the next decade. So it’s really what’s tragic about this is that there’s a lot of people walking around with blood sugars in their 90s, and they’re not realizing where their future health is moving.

Yeah.

So it’s pretty important to understand this concept of what’s ideal glucose, what’s ideal insulin, what does hemoglobin A1C mean. Because this is a central focus as to why people age and why people will end up with more chronic illnesses and diseases as they’re aging if they become a person with diabetes or if they’re insulin-resistant.

Got it. So let’s talk about what those conditions might be like. If you are on that path, how might those conditions affect the body, and where can they lead — like how do they lead to further health issues?
Yeah. That’s a big question I think a lot of people don’t understand. So let me just go through the big things that can occur.

OK.

One is you can end up with kidney disease. And why that is important is all of us see dialysis centers on every street corner these days. Well, those dialysis centers are filled with people that have had a lifetime of insulin resistance and have become people with diabetes, because when you have blood sugar dysregulation, it creates a few problems. One, you get more oxidative stress, which damages your kidneys.

But more importantly, when you’re releasing a lot of insulin and that insulin resistant state, it makes your blood vessels more stiff. And now your heart has to pump harder. And you get something called renal hypertension. And you start to plaque your arteries more. So insulin resistance in addition to kidney disease, leads to heart disease.

It also leads to something called peripheral vascular disease. So you lose circulation into the periphery, into the fingers and toes. And that’s why people with diabetes end up a lot of times, they may need to get a finger or toe amputated. Non-traumatic amputations. Diabetes is the leading reason. And then the big one that a lot of people don’t realize is Alzheimer’s and dementia. That it’s actually even — in the literature, it’s termed type III diabetes.

Yes.

So that when you think of it, everything from kidney disease to peripheral vascular disease to heart disease to dementia, and then the leading cause of non-traumatic blindness. So these are big, big issues that can affect people. And I find that a lot of times, they just don’t know enough about one, how can I work on my blood glucose? Two, how important is it for my health? Because we still have this thought that, oh, a pill is going to fix it.

Right. And in this case, we’re going to get into some of the things that we can do about this. But let’s talk first about what are some of the hidden causes of insulin resistance that we might not be aware of. Like, that could be — whether it’s lifestyle or otherwise.

Sure.

Maybe it’s genetics. Who knows?

Yeah. So there is a genetic susceptibility that’s there. I’ve got all the genes that would say you’re going to be a person with diabetes. My whole family, my father’s side, all Italians. My father was a type II diabetic. My grandmother was a type I diabetic who was blind and did have digits amputated. So I’ve lived with this my whole life. So there’s some things that you should know.

One is obvious. You actually have to get a good night’s sleep. When you have disturbed sleep patterns, or you’re not getting enough sleep, or if you have sleep apnea. So if your partner is telling you you’re snoring and you’re stopping your breathing when you’re sleeping, you should probably go get checked for sleep apnea.

Yes.

So that’s a big one, because it’s a much bigger issue than we think. And I mean, upwards of 30% to 40% of people will complain of insomnia in the US.

That is a lot of people. That’s nearly half of the population. We’re encroaching on that.

Yeah. Well, a lot of people don’t realize one of the biggest reasons you walk into a pharmacy is they’re looking for sleep aids. So that’s a big deal. Sleep causes disruptions in your blood sugar. And when your blood sugar gets disrupted, your insulin gets disrupted. So they go hand in hand.

Right.

The other one is stress. So when your cortisol goes up, its job is to make you keep glucose in your bloodstream.

And the reason for that is, is that it thinks that the stress you’re under — traffic jams, too many emails, somebody sent you a text message that you got upset about, right, one too many commitments on your list, maybe there’s problems at home, whatever reason, stress hormones go up.

Yep.

Stress hormones go up by default. Glucose is trying to go up because we have a primitive nervous system in chemistry, living in a modern world. It thinks we’re under stress. That means that glucose is going to stay in your bloodstream. So stress is a big one as it relates to that. Other things. Environmental exposures are linked to problems with glucose regulation.

So detoxification can be an important factor in staying well and keeping your blood sugar under control. And probably one of the big ones is people don’t understand that you know your body needs micronutrients in order to make your insulin receptors work correctly. So nutrients like chromium, magnesium, zinc, B vitamins are at the minimum need of making your insulin receptors work.

Yeah.

And so these are some of the big drivers. And obviously, if you’re not active, one of the best things that you can do after a meal is, can you take a 10-minute walk?

Yeah.

Even if you can’t say, hey, I’m in the middle of my work day, I can’t go and go to the gym and have an hour training session. But even if you can move for 10 minutes.

Yeah. Walk around the building.

Yeah. Just do that. Just get up and move. Get off the chair. That can have a dramatic impact on it. So movement, stress, lifestyle, diet, all of those things are really important for regulating blood sugar.
Man, there’s a lot of factors here that we’re going to get into.

It’s why half our population has the problem.

Well, right. And there’s so many factors in our population that make it easy to do the opposite of what’s good for us. Right? There’s all these things that it’s like we have — a lot of us have largely sedentary jobs. So we’re not moving a lot throughout the day. I mean, you just think about, like you said, we have this primitive response system in a modern world where that threat that we think we’re under, it’s not the tiger that our ancestors really were running from. It’s not that. So what happens then is that cortisol just continues to circulate in our bodies when that happens.

Yeah. Well, what starts to happen — and I know we’re going to talk about stress and cortisol in a future issue. But there’s something called flattening your cortisol curve. So your cortisol is supposed to go up high in the morning, drop at noon, drop again in the evening, and then go to nothing at bedtime. You release melatonin. You go to sleep. Perfect.

But when you flatten that cortisol curve, meaning you just keep pumping it out all day long, that is associated with increased cardiometabolic risk, which is associated with glucose and insulin, along with other risks like neurologic disorders and mood disorders. But the bottom line is that when your body is continually responding to stress, that’s going to have a big input on your glucose and insulin. And I’ll tell you, the other hidden one that people don’t realize is we hear the term comfort food.

Oh, yes.

Right? So when you’re under stress, you’re going to want to reach for comfort food to help your neurochemistry. Build more serotonin, help your dopamine. I need a reward. That reward isn’t another sprig of broccoli. People don’t reach for broccoli or a salad. When a reward hits, you’re going to say, where’s the M&Ms?

Where is the dark chocolate-covered pretzel with Maldon sea salt, caramel, and bacon drizzled on it? All the savory sweet things. And that’s one of the problems. Is that you hear people talk about food noise.

Yes.

And food noise equates, I’m eating too much, I’m eating too often, I’m eating too late. I’m picking the wrong foods. I’m not getting enough sleep.

Yeah.

All of that is going to lead to blood sugar and insulin problems. And the problem is as you start to continue to release more insulin, that’s where you hear the term hemoglobin A1c or glycated hemoglobin. That means you’re sticking sugar on a protein. And that happens to the eye, so you develop cataracts that happens in your blood. It happens in your tissues. And that’s why elevated glucose is so damaging. Because when your glucose is up, you start damaging all your tissues.

Yeah. It has a systemic effect. Right?

Yeah.

OK. So now, how do we know if we have blood sugar issues? I know there are some things we can do in daily life. I’ve been hearing a lot lately about CGMs or continuous glucose monitors. But what about testing? What are some of the things that we should be doing on a regular basis to be monitoring our blood sugar?

Well, some things that you could say just before you get to the testing is, am I gaining belly fat? Am I getting anxious or nervous or clammy, if I go more than three hours or so without eating? So your blood sugar spiking and dropping. Nighttime thirst could be another aspect to that.

But then it gets into monitoring. And still, the gold standard is get a blood test. Get what’s called a venipuncture blood test. That is the gold standard for looking at your blood sugar, looking at insulin, and then looking at hemoglobin A1c. That’s how you’re going to get those numbers. You mentioned a continuous glucose monitor known as a CGM.

I think they’re invaluable, not because they give us accuracy of where my glucose — because it’s interstitial fluid that you’re measuring. You’re not getting the actual blood volume or the number. But what CGMs do is it helps to show you your response.

Yeah.

And so the oscillation of glucose. How high your glucose goes, how much it drops, either after a meal, maybe alcohol —

Yeah.

—training, stress. You start to see the lifestyle factors and how much your glucose is swinging up and down. And so a CGM can help you say, hey. When I eat rice, my glucose really spiked versus when I ate quinoa. Or maybe rice is OK in the right amounts. Or it’s — wow. I really got under stress in that meeting.

What happened there?

And what happened when I got under stress? Do I need to do some mindfulness techniques. Do I need to learn some deep breathing? What do I need to do to help control that? And then it could be how late I’m eating, especially if you combine it with things like a whoop or a morpheus strap or an ultrahuman ring, and you’re looking at heart rate variability or quality of sleep.

You start to combine these things, and you can really start to get an understanding of how your body is operating. And so it starts to drive, what foods do I select to keep that oscillation at a smaller oscillation rate. So I’m not getting the spikes up and down.

Yeah. So it might not be a huge — like, you always hear about the blood sugar roller-coaster. It’s not the huge drop that you want. It’s like the little dips, maybe, that would be more ideal than a huge drop.
Absolutely. I always tell people it’s ideal. If you were just doing a finger stick or you’re looking at your CGM, boy, if you could keep that post-meal glucose like an hour after your glucose at around 125, and then you start to approach normal again at 2 hours, that’s when you’re doing a good job. When you start to see 160 blood glucose post-meal, probably need to look at the kind of meal you’re eating.

Right. But I think that’s what’s so interesting about even just the rise in somebody people using CGMs now. It really creates this individualized awareness of what your choices are. The effects that they’re having on your body. And again, there are more accurate tests that you can do, you’re going to want to do those. But just the awareness to start maybe making small changes that can begin to accumulate over time.

I think they’re invaluable. I mean, I honestly do. I think that you can learn a lot about what lifestyle choices you’re making is impacting your blood glucose. Because look, in the end, glucose and insulin relationships, they are probably the single most important thing that you will do to control your health span and really optimize your health because it’s going to help you to maintain your weight. It’s going to reduce damage to all your tissues. It’s going to help you to fuel your body to be able to train as hard as you want to train.

And I find it’s one of the areas that people still don’t understand maybe everything they should and how they could be empowered. So I love when people do CGMs because of that.

Well, that takes us to that empowerment, right? Like, what are the steps that we can take to combat insulin resistance and/or like, what are some of the key lifestyle habits that help us manage it?

Yeah. Well, I really like — when people talk about time-restricted eating. I like a 12/12 schedule for people on a regular basis. I mean, if they want to do an 18 fasting 6 eating 1 or 2 times a week in order to induce a little bit of autophagy or cleanup in your body, great. But a 12/12 schedule is really good for the average person.

And then the kind of foods that you choose, probably a more protein-rich breakfast because your cortisol is highest in the morning, that’s when you’re going to be the most problematic with having a higher carb load in the morning because your cortisol is really high. So maybe a little more protein-rich in the morning. Get maybe some of your carbs in the evening to stimulate serotonin.

Not a bad hack, I guess, just to be able to utilize. The other one is consistency of exercise. So that little thought of 10 minutes after you eat, can you do a walk? Can you walk for 10 minutes, that’s great. Obviously, cardio training is good. Strength training has proven itself to be really supportive for glucose regulation because it upregulates the GLUT4 transport in your cells. And GLUT4 is basically the way your body takes in glucose and makes a lot of ATP. That’s what you want.

And that’s what you want for energy.

Bundles of ATP for energy and helping your body do what it’s supposed to do. Stress management is big. I know a lot of times we’re told, oh. I love meditation. I love mindfulness. A lot of times people have trouble with what kind of time in their day. So I like them to at least start. And I know we’ve done this at
Life Time. I’m pretty excited about what got initiated. Five-minute break.

Yes.

Deep breathing. Box breathing. Four seconds in. Hold four seconds, four seconds out. Think of the stress that’s in — it’s going on in your mind and releasing it on the exhale and then holding for four seconds. You do that for five minutes and then seal that with gratefulness, something you’re grateful for. And I always try to get people to do that. Hey. If you can only do it for three minutes, do it at lunch break before you eat. Reset —

Mindful eating.

Mindful eating. Correct. And then do it again at the end of the workday. And then if your mind is perseverating and you’re making a list of what you got to do tomorrow when you’re going down that —

Who does that?

Yeah. Exactly. Probably no one. I don’t know anybody that does that. But you should probably do it at bedtime, too.

Yeah.

Because it’s really important to understand that when we get under the duress of life and we create sympathetic stress, fight or flight response, it’s going to throw off our blood sugar. We’re not going to breathe as deep. And we’re not going to have that balanced nervous system that optimizes blood sugar regulation. And then, of course, making smarter food choices, really important.

So vegetables, lean proteins. Yeah. I mean, I think grains get a bad rap. You have to realize, your body does need glycogen. If there’s a problem with you utilizing grains, it’s probably because your blood sugar is out of balance. But we don’t need to overeat them. Eat them to the capacity of the workload that you need that glucose. I think a lot of times, people feel like, oh, yeah. I need that bag of potato chips.

Right.

Oh, yeah. I need to eat through that whole box of crackers, which is that whole thing about reward eating.

Yes.

Be in touch with that. And then remember, key nutrients. And this is from the start. I mean, when you’re in your 20s, you should be thinking about this. Am I getting adequate magnesium? Am I getting adequate chromium? Omega 3 fatty acids can be helpful. Where are my B vitamins at? Do I get enough zinc? These are all things that are baselines that we have to think about with blood sugar regulation.

Yeah. So let’s talk about how do we approach this with support. Because I know MIORA has an approach to how do we help people manage their insulin resistance. What does that look like? And let’s talk a little bit about some of the ways that we can help them, whether it’s with supplementation, more strategic supplementation, and all of those pieces. Because I want to make sure, we know about the assessments that we can help provide to identify where to start and then what to do about it with those more specific targeted interventions, potentially.

Sure. Well, what’s great about MIORA is you have health care providers there. So if you have a CGM on, they can help you to interpret that if you’re having issues with it. Because I think a lot of times there’s confusion. People get a CGM and they’re looking at these numbers. They don’t really understand what it means. So that means that our health care providers can provide clarity if you’re wearing a CGM.

But in addition to that, we do a blood test. We do comprehensive blood testing. And we look at glucose and insulin and hemoglobin A1C. And we can find out, hey, if you’re in your 90s and your insulin is trending high and your A1c is trending high, you’re on the wrong path. And that means that our dietician can help you design a diet that’s going to help you gain control of your blood sugar.

And that for providers, depending on how disrupted it is and how much weight gain you’ve had, it can be everything from suggesting a titrating dose of GLP-1s, which can help you to gain control of that signaling of glucose, insulin, and glucagon. The things that relate to how you store fat. But then also targeted supplementation. Berberine, bitter melon, for example. Chromium in a clinical dose that helps you build the chromium stores you need. Vanadium, another trace mineral. And then in addition to that, obviously, one of the key things, magnesium is so important in blood sugar regulation. So the MIORA providers can help create a plan. And you can use that CGM, if you’re using it, to help see the improvement. In addition to that, you’ll get periodic testing to look at, hey, am I losing weight because of — I was insulin-resistant and now I’m overcoming that.

But the key to that is, you want to lose fat and not lose lean muscle. And so when you look at the MIORA program, it’s the providers correcting the chemistry. It’s the dietician that’s helping you to learn the right foods to choose. And then it’s our trainers helping you to maintain that lean mass because of having a good exercise plan that helps you to retain that lean mass. Because there’s a lot of wrong ways to regulate glucose and insulin, as we’ve seen, with people just reaching out and using semaglutide, tirzepatide, other GLP-1 agonists that they just lose lean mass. And when you lose lean mass, you lose your metabolic performance.

Right. And it’s like all of these things are intertwined. And I think what’s so interesting it really is this holistic approach that’s not setting one part off over here. Really, you have to have all of those pieces in place to be functioning optimally. Right? Like, that’s what we want.

No. That’s exactly right. And I know with my training leading at the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine and teaching physicians all over the country, this is the approach that we really have found to be effective over the past several years. And I’m really happy that it’s such an important part of what we’re building at MIORA. Is creating that healthy way of life principle in every aspect of what we do.
Absolutely. So you did say something. I want to just make sure our audience knows. You said when you’re in your 90s. I think you meant when you’re in your 90s with your blood glucose level, not just your age of 90.

Correct.

For anybody in their 90s that’s like —

That’s correct.

—wait a second, I know what he’s saying.

Yeah. You could be 19 years old and have a blood sugar in your 90s.

Yes.

Really common.

Yes. So that’s something to be aware of. How often should — if somebody is working with a health care provider, get their A1c, get their blood sugar levels tested? I mean, I know it’s usually at an annual at a preventive.

Sure.

But if you feel like you’re struggling, how often should you reach out to somebody for help with that or to get a better look?

I think it’s a little bit specific to how often your numbers are. OK. So depending on how often your numbers are, the providers are going to say, hey, you know what? We may want to check a blood glucose before we do a three-month or six-month recheck of all your labs. So a little bit dependent on where you are at.

Got it.

But at the minimum, people should be looking at this every six months, even if they’re in good health. Like, I’m in good health and I want to stay in good health. Keep on top of your lab values. But if you’re struggling and maybe say, you’re on a say, weight loss program because your glucose and insulin is off, and that’s a central reason why the weight gain is there, probably in conjunction with your cortisol being off and your thyroid being off and your gut being a little permeable, it’s all kind of gets all that together at one time.

But that becomes an issue of probably testing more frequently. And that’s what’s nice about what we’ve done at MIORA. We take all the guesswork out of that. So the providers have a plan for individuals based on where their needs are for periodic testing, rechecking, and then continual check-ins with MIORA staff to make sure that you’re doing what you need to be doing. Are you struggling in any way? Is there a problem with diet or exercise or where are you struggling?

Yep. It goes back to that accountability again. We often need support no matter who we are. It’s hard to make change. I think we know that there are a lot of temptations like that want to pull us in the unhealthier direction when we’re trying to make healthy change. It can be hard and you need that support, which we know. That’s why these kind of programs have worked over time.

So Jim, what did we miss? I don’t want to miss anything on this important topic, because again, blood sugar regulation, insulin resistance. These are things that really we need to be knowledgeable about because they really come down to their deeper, more root cause of health issues.

Yeah. I think it’s important to just understand that lifestyle environment choices that you make all really dictate blood sugar. It’s not something that is driven strongly genetically for the majority of the population. It’s really in your hands. You can make the change to get that blood sugar on point. And remember, probably the single biggest risk factor for where your future health is going to go.

Yeah. So something to always be keeping an eye on and paying attention to.

Correct.

Jim, thank you as always. If people want to learn more, they can visit miora.lifetime.life. And with that, we’re on to the next. Thank you, Jim.

Sure.

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