How Stress and Caffeine Trigger Insulin Resistance: Insights from Dr. Ben Bikman

Insulin resistance is the most common health problem worldwide. That is one of the main reasons I speak about it so often. What causes insulin resistance? I have, over the years, identified three primary causes of insulin resistance. One of them is stress. Now, what does stress mean? I define stress by an elevation in the prototypical stress hormones, namely cortisol and epinephrine, which is also known as adrenaline. Both of these hormones, which are increased during a stressed state, can acutely or very rapidly cause insulin resistance. When might you have elevated adrenaline or epinephrine levels? Well, one stimulus that will increase your epinephrine is caffeine. Now, I want to highlight this particular study here. It was published about 20 years ago. What they did was document the degree to which caffeine increases the insulin secretion. When someone eats glucose or when you eat carbohydrates. When we eat carbohydrates, our blood sugar levels will climb, and insulin will need to go up in order to reduce that blood sugar or bring it back down. When you couple that carbohydrate load with a high amount of caffeine, you have to have much more insulin. Insulin has to work much harder in order to clear the glucose. Now, don't shoot the messenger. It's just perhaps an encouragement to be mindful of how much caffeine you're consuming in a day.